October 5, 2026

The Empire Vampire State

How Hochul has made New York Unaffordable

New York has a great legacy of being the state where fortunes are made and where hard work makes the difference. It is where commercial empires were created and was part of the engine that powered the United States. The term was coined by George Washington where he referred to New York as "the seat of the empire". New York City also served as the nation's capital from 1785 to 1790. It also hosted the first presidential inauguration on April 30, 1789 when George Washington was sworn in as America's first president. New York also had the largest population than any of the other states and was a key shipping port for commerce. Unfortunately New York is losing its title. It has been a slow degression toward financial ruin with a bloated government, significant debt, over regulation, lost jobs and its hall mark, excessive taxes. So much so, it has become a governmental vampire taxing its citizens to death with no end in sight. This is New York today.   

Governor Hochul's current budget allocates $268.5 billion in spending. New York comes in as the second largest budget out of all of the 50 states with California coming in as number one with a $525.4 billion dollar budget. New York as a population of around 20 million residents while California has over 39 million. Florida which has 23 million residents has a budget of $114.8 billion. Texas which has a population of almost 32 million has a budget of $176.4 billion. The point is New York & California spend the most when compared to other states with higher populations per capita. Hochul's first budget in 2023 was $220 billion almost $50 billion less than the current budget. Compared to Andrew Cuomo's first budget in 2012 in which she served as Lt. Governor, the budget was $132.5 billion. That means New York's budget grew by 102.6% in a 15 year period or 6.84% annual growth.  This does not include the $12.7 billion in Covid relief the state received and other forms of federal aid for such items as transportation, policing, etc. This level of spending is unsustainable.

New York has an extremely high level of debt. Much of it is hidden off the state balance sheet similar to what the feds accused Enron of doing in the early 2000s. The current listed state debt is $72.2 billion. This amount is chump change when taking into consideration all forms of state debt. In particular, Public benefit Corporations or commonly referred to as Public Authorities have some of the highest forms of accumulated debt. One of the largest is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) which had $50.4 billion in debt at the end of 2025. When adding all debt of the state's 1180 public authorities, the current debt is $327 billion in total. Compared to California's $112 billion in debt, New York is almost 4 times that amount in total. These entities are created in order to get around the requirement for voter approval to issue bonds. These public authorities are able to issue their own bonds with little oversight. This is the very reason why New York has accumulated $399.2 billion in debt. Yet under Hochul, the state has taken no action to reign in spending, reduce debt or eliminate public authorities.

New York loves to regulate every aspect of life in the state. While regulation can serve a compelling government interest such as protecting residents from disease, fraud or crime, the question is how much regulation is appropriate. After all, the state's residents are the arbiters of what should be regulated and how much, not our elected officials or unelected bureaucrats. New York government didn't get the memo. New York was ranked as the 2nd most regulated state only behind California in 2023 with 300,095 regulations. Many of these regulations increase costs and make New York less affordable.

One of the most obvious is the cost of energy. New York is part of a " state cap and trade pact" with ten other northeastern states called the Regional Gashouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The other states include Connecticut, Maine, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, New jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode island and Vermont. The pact relies on permits corresponding with a cap of total greenhouse emissions for all eleven states. Energy providers are required to pay for extra permits if they exceed their limit for greenhouse gasses. Those energy providers that cut their emissions can sell the surplus permits. Those payments are passed onto consumers which drives up energy costs. Even if an energy provider is able to reduce their green house emissions, they will still need to raise energy rates due to the high start up cost for renewable energy such as wind and solar as compared to natural gas and other forms of fossil fuel. With New York setting an unrealistic goal of an 85% reduction in greenhouse gas by 2050 and a complete 100% shift to green energy, energy prices will continue to sky rocket. New York has also banned gas power lawn equipment beginning in 2027, banned the sale of new gas combustion vehicles beginning in 2035 and has mandated all school districts must purchase electric school buses by 2032 even though electric buses cost three times the cost of diesel powered buses. 

The insanity of regulation does not stop at energy and greenhouse gas. It involves all aspects of life in New York. In the area of education, New York places significant local mandates on schools without adequate funding. This includes special education requirements that exceed federal regulations, allowing expired employee contracts to remain in effect during labor negotiations (The Triborough Amendment), requiring multiple contractors for public construction, infrastructure repair (The Wicks law), restricting non-union bidding and mandating districts provide busing to all non public, private school students in a fifty mile radius. Businesses are one of the most heavily regulated groups in New York. From rent control to various operating requirements and fees, the ability to make a profit is extremely limited which in turn has forced many companies to relocate outside of New York and many to shut down. One of the most insane laws involve scaffolding on buildings. It holds owners and employers strictly liable for any injuries sustained by employees without regard to fault. This law is one of the largest drivers of construction costs for businesses and housing. New York's $17.00 minimum wage law has squeezed businesses and driven up the cost for the price of goods, consumer services and the price of food. The state regulates numerous professions and other businesses in which they charge for the privilege of being "licensed" by the state.

New York has even ventured into regulating constitutional rights including gun rights, religious liberty and parental rights. In 2022, New York's gun law giving licensing officers unlimited discretion in deciding if a resident had "proper cause" to carry a gun outside the home for self defense was declared unconstitutional in NYRPA v. Bruen. Deciding to reject the binding court decision, New York responded by passing an even more restrictive gun law one month later, the Concealed carry Improvement Act (CCIA). Continuing this approach, New York recently decided to ban the sale of all Glock handguns as the guns are designed with a cruciform trigger bar that criminals can alter converting the guns to fully automatic. Even though the alteration is illegal under state and federal law, the state asserts the mere possibility of illegal conversion meets the definition of a machine gun and therefore the sale of all Glock hand guns can be banned. Law enforcement is excluded from the ban. This regulation clearly violates existing Supreme Court precedence in Heller, Bruen, Wolford & Hemani. A federal district court in the same circuit as New York recently issues a preliminary injunction against Connecticut's Glock ban.

Even religious liberty means nothing in New York. New York decided to disregard a religious adoption agency's right to place children with traditional families, accused the agency of discrimination, and tried to force the agency to change their religious teaching to require placing children with LGBT families or shut down. Even though it's well established that the First Amendment's free exercise clause gives religious institutions the right to practice their faith, New York sought to ignore the constitution. After their effort was blocked by two separate federal courts, the state ultimately settled with the adoption agency in 2023 (New Hope Family Services, Inc v. James, New York). The state has again sought to punish a religious institution, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthrone, a Catholic Hospice for refusing to violate their religious views and house biological males with females. The catholic religious order filed a federal suit in April. In June, the US Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division intervened in the suit. The case remains pending. Not to be detered, the state is also  targeting religious institutions under the recently enacted assisted suicide law, the Medical Aid in Dying Act by requiring all medical providers including religious institutions to counsel patients about assisted suicide. Ten religious institutions filed a federal suit in June and the case is pending. Taxpayers continue to foot the bill for New York's blind regulatory efforts.

Not only does New York refuse to recognize religious liberty, their efforts are without compromise and are totally irrational. The state which previously allowed parents to opt out of childhood immunizations for religious reasons decided to eliminate the religious exemption. This has significantly impacted the state's growing Amish population as immunizations conflict with their faith. The Amish who have repopulated dying upstate New York towns and counties educate their children in private community one room school houses versus public schools. Thus the likelihood of spreading contagious diseases is fairly low for the Amish. Instead of trying to arrive at some type of reasonable accommodation, the state began fining the Amish tens of thousands of dollars. The Amish who refrain from litigation felt they had no choice and filed a federal law suit. The matter remains in litigation and is currently on appeal before the US Supreme court. If the court declines to hear their appeal and the Amish are forced to immunize their children, they have vowed to leave the state. Losing between 25,000-26,000 residents would mean the loss of revenue, economic activity, loss of productive farm land, and further depopulation of upstate towns & counties.  

Going beyond the pale, New York believes there are no limits in its regulatory overreach and scope. The state recently sought to regulate the federal government ignoring the supremacy clause and well established Supreme Court precedent such as Arizona V. United States 2012. The ruling held that the powers of the federal government to regulate immigration and aliens is "broad" and "undoubted". Even so, New York recently passed a ban on face covering by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and barring federal law enforcement from entering so called "sensitive locations" which include schools, hospitals, libraries, shelters, child care centers, community centers, student housing, public parks and polling locations. Currently there is no similar ban on State or local law enforcement from entering these designated locations. A federal judge recently blocked enforcement of the face covering ban. The remaining provisions continue to face legal challenges.

In the most egregious and boldest moves, New York sought again to pre-empt federal law by passing the Climate Change Superfund Act in 2024. The law sought to establish a superfund by forcing oil companies to pay $75 billion over 25 years for their role in creating greenhouse gases that contributed to climate change. The law imposed strict liability on oil companies which would be imposed by an administrative panel. The law did not require a finding of causation and was retroactive. Two federal courts have found the law to be unconstitutional and pre-empted by federal law. If the law was allowed to go into effect, the $75 billion dollar cost would have been passed to consumers in the form of higher gas prices. New York has no shame in creating novel revenue streams to fund higher spending.

While all of these issues would be enough to make New York unaffordable, and undesirable to reside here, the most egregious issue affecting the cost of living is taxes. The fiscal philosophy of New York is absurd. Higher taxes and bloated spending cannot create  prosperity. Its actually a vicious cycle that leads to fiscal ruin and the hollowing out of New York's economy. According to the Citizens Budget Commission, New York residents pay the highest taxes in America when combining all state and local taxes. New York also has the highest personal and corporate income taxes in America. It has the highest pending per student and spends the most on Medicaid. New York collected the most taxes per capita and 71% more per person than the national average. The state also collected the most personal tax per $1000 of income among all states and collected the most corporate taxes per $1000 of state gross domestic product (GDP) in the nation. Who can forget the recent computer tax which charges commuters to enter into Manhattan. Governor Hochul put the law on hold prior to the last state election in 2024 and allowed the law to go into effect right after the election.  

This vicious cycle of spending, debt, regulation and taxes has reached a breaking point. Tens of thousands of New York residents have left the state and thousands more continue to leave. Young people can no longer afford to buy homes and good paying jobs are becoming hard to find. Giving property tax and energy rebate checks close to election day are political gimmicks. It reflects a lack of leadership by the Governor and the Democrat controlled legislature. This is why there is an affordability problem in New York. Unless the policies of New York change, New York will continue to be unaffordable for the majority of its residents. This is the definition New York, a vampire state.