The bad economic news just keeps coming.

Last week, Honeywell announced 290 job cuts in Skaneateles Falls while officials at the New Process Gear plant in East Syracuse warned of a possible shutdown. A couple of weeks before, TRW Automotive said it was laying off nearly 40 workers at its Auburn facility.

And those are just the big employers. The small business job cuts that don't come with big announcements have been piling up, too, as unemployment data reflects. In Cayuga County, the unemployment rate has been climbing year-over-year for seven straight months, and there are no indications that streak will end when July job market figures are released.

While the slumping national economy is certainly playing a big role in many of these staffing decisions, there's another factor at work - the business climate of New York state.

For all the talk by state legislators and governors in recent years about improving the state's regulatory and tax burdens on employers, New York continues to rank at or near the bottom in terms of business friendliness.

The Business Council of New York State said property taxes in this state are 79 percent above the national average. This environment makes it tough to attract new employers at times when the national economy is solid, and as we're finding out now, it puts the state's job market at considerable risk when the economy is going poorly.

The state Senate seems to have finally come on board with the idea that property tax reform along with spending controls at the state level are a crucial part of any turn-around. Last week, the Republican-controlled body voted to support Democratic Gov. David Paterson's proposal that takes a step in this direction.

The governor's fellow party members in the Democratically-controlled Assembly, however, are holding this progress up.

We hope it won't take more factory closures or mass layoffs to get them to see their mistake.