Hochul Needs to Put New Yorkers First
Its Time to improve life in New York
The term public servant refers to elected officials, office holders and public employees who are either elected by the people or who are appointed by various elected officials. They play a pivotal role in the structure of government as they serve to execute the responsibilities of the state. They answer to the people and have specific responsibilities. The number one responsibility is public safety, fiscal stability and the maintenance of state infrastructure. Their role requires accountability and efficiency as the government is funded by taxpayer funds derived from taxing the people. The Governor and the legislature are ultimately accountable that these duties are carried out to reflect the will of the people. Their job is to create an environment where people have the opportunity to improve their life, be safe, raise a family and realize the American Dream. However in New York, Governor Hochul is trapped by an extreme ideology that seeks to indulge some of the worst extremes of society to the detriment of the people. The legislature is also operating untethered to reality by passing laws and budgets that do nothing to improve the life's of New Yorkers. It's time for Hochul to take a stand and actually lead.
Kathy Hochul who served as the Lt-Governor for seven years became Governor after Andrew Cuomo resigned three years ago in 2021. She then won re-election in 2022 for a full term as Governor in a close race against former Congressman Lee Zeldin. Hochul who previously served as the Clerk of Erie County later served one term in Congress. She was then tapped as Andrew Cuomo's running mate when he ran for Governor in 2014 and was re-elected in 2018. Politically she was considered moderate to right of center after running on the Conservative party line when she was elected to the Hamburg Town Board and her positions on illegal immigration and the 2nd Amendment. During her time as Erie County Clerk, she opposed the issuance of driver licenses to illegal aliens in 2007 by then Governor Eliot Spitzer and actually called for their arrest. Upon her run for Lt-Governor, she disavowed her previous position and endorsed driver licenses for illegal aliens. She was only one of two Democrats in New York to be endorsed by the National Rifle Association in 2012 when she ran for re-election in congress and received an A rating. She issued the following statement after receiving their endorsement: "I am honored to receive the endorsement of the National Rifle Association (NRA), an organization that represents thousands of western New York Sportsmen. As a county clerk, I was a staunch advocate for sportsmen, and I have carried through on my commitment to protect their rights in Congress." After assuming the governorship, she disavowed her relationship with the NRA. She then moved further to the left during her time as Governor.
In politics, people change their positions all the time for various reasons. Whether they evolve on certain issues or are influenced by their constituents, it is not necessarily a bad thing. However, by turning 180 degrees without any justifiable rationale, it reinforces the notion that politics are ugly and all politicians are liars. Hochul has taken the same path as Senator Gillibrand who was also a moderate as a Congresswoman to become a leftist leaning politician as Senator. The conventional wisdom says that most people don't like the extremes and look to the middle. They seek compromise on contentious issues and balance on social issues. They want efficient government and low taxes. Yet time and time again, New York continues to immerse itself in every social controversy taking the most extreme position which negatively impacts New Yorkers. The state's budget and the rate of taxation continue to grow exponentially without any effort to rein in spending. This in turn creates an atmosphere where people see no other choice but to leave New York for other prosperous states such as Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. These states actually put their residents first by striving to improve the quality of life, run their states efficiently, promote business, add good paying jobs and keep taxes low. It is the direct opposite in New York.
State spending continues to rise at an ever increasing rate. The current 2024 budget is a record shattering $229 billion. In comparison, the 2014-2015 budget was $143.4 billion, which is a 62.6% increase over ten years. This does not include the spending and long term debt of the 1178 public authorities in New York such as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Portions of the budget were just plain reckless; providing billions of dollars to illegal aliens for free legal services so they can stay in the U.S., unemployment benefits under an "Excluded Workers Program", free healthcare coverage for a limited number of illegal aliens (a bill to provide health care to all illegal aliens was vetoed this year by Hochul), cost of shelters and a host of welfare benefits after Hochul changed the eligibility for New York's "Safety Net Assistance" program. This does not include spending by New York City or other financial assistance provided by the State including the increased cost to educate illegal alien children or medical care provided by hospitals. While Hochul can try to argue this is a crisis and this is just humanitarian aid, the vast array of benefits is excessive. Instead of using taxpayer funds to lure more illegal aliens to New York, she should have demanded action from President Biden and Vice President Harris to close the border. Yet this is the most egregious spending as it involves people who are illegally present. The two highest expenditures in the budget involved Medicaid and eduction. In fiscal year 2022, New York spent $83 billion on Medicaid more than Florida and Pennsylvania combined at 74 billion. In 2024, the cost per pupil in New York is $32,000 versus the national average of $19,973. This is unsustainable.
In order to pay for all of this spending, New York relies on heavily on taxes. According to a study by WalletHub, New York comes in at number one with the highest tax burden in America. The total tax burden is 12.2 percent, a 4.36 percent property tax burden, a 4.62 individual income tax burden and a 3.03 percent total sales & excise tax burden. Not surprising, New York also ranked 49th out of the fifty states by the US Tax Foundation for having the highest business taxes in America. New Jersey was ranked the worst. So what does New York do when they need more revenue to spend, they raise taxes. In particular, the MTA has become a bottom less pit for spending with almost no accountability. Plagued by cost overruns, waste and rampant fare evasion, the MTA does what it often does best, they demand more state aid warning of dire consequences including fare hikes. The state in turn came up with a slick new tax called congestion pricing. All vehicles entering below 60th street in Manhattan will have to pay a toll which was estimated at $15 per vehicle. They marketed the new toll as a panacea to help fund the MTA's capital projects while reducing the number of vehicles entering Manhattan which will reduce congestion and enhance public transportation. The only problem is the cost to over taxed New Yorkers. So what did Hochul do?, she postponed the June 30th implementation date to sometime after the November election in order to avoid accountability at the ballot box. How cynical is that?
The cost to live in New York is not only related to taxes but also related to the cost of public policy. New York's Green New Deal is no deal for taxpayers. The mandate pushed by Hochul, will require all new school buses purchased in 2027 to be zero emissions (electric vehicles) and all district fleets must transition by 2030. The average cost for an electric school bus is $352,000 which is three and a half times that of a diesel school bus. As there are 45,000 school buses being used in New York, the cost to taxpayers will be astronomical. While the environmental bond act passed by voters in 2022 provides $500 million for the purchase of electric buses, the math is quite clear, slightly more that 3% of the cost will be covered under the bond funds and the remainder will need to come from local school districts funded by property taxes. Hochul's mandate to ban the sale of gas powered cars by 2035 will also hit New York residents hard with higher costs, significant transportation challenges such as a lack of charging infrastructure, battery limitations in New York's cold climate and a lack of choice.
Hochul's approach to economic issues is more in line with a socialist approach. While most people support a reasonable increase to the New York's minimum wage, the current sixteen dollar wage with scheduled increases of fifty cents for the next three years is too high. Most minimum wages jobs are entry level jobs and were never considered career oriented. Employers have no choice but to pass the increase to consumers which in turn increases inflationary pressure for goods and services in New York. When California's minimum wage went to twenty per hour, hundreds of businesses laid off employees, shuttered some locations or discontinued operations. When looking at housing costs, a significant driver is the cost of property & school taxes, insurance and borrowing costs due to high interest rates from inflation. There is also pressure related to increased demand by an ever increasing illegal alien population. Instead of addressing these issues, the Governor sought to turn suburban areas into high density urban centers by overriding local zoning laws to mandate the construction of large apartment buildings. Where is her focus on the middle class? What has she done specifically to address the structural issues creating high costs and taxes for all New Yorkers?
Every election cycle we are told that one party wants to engage in a cultural war with legislation. Yet the Governor and her allies in the legislature are on a never ending race to the extreme on social issues. When it comes to abortion, New York currently has not restriction on abortion, who can perform abortions, the procedures used and provides taxpayer funds to pay for abortions. In an effort to get our their base, the Governor and her allies added a constitutional amendment to the ballot that codifies abortion with no restrictions in the state's constitution. The amendment also addresses transgenderism which will ensure that biological men can enter woman & girls bathrooms, changing areas and any other sex segregated area. It will also strip parents from exercising their rights to raise their children and will allow the state to force gender surgeries. Even on issues involving sexually themed books inside school and local libraries, the Governor without any regard to the view of parents or the age appropriateness of the material, demanded a local Long Island Library reverse their decision to remove a Pride display after complaints by parents. The library which only removed the display but not the material reversed course after Hochul announced an investigation by the state's Human Rights Commission. When it comes to social issues, there is nothing too extreme for Governor Hochul.
If fiscal and social extremism isn't enough, crime is one of the most significant issues pushing people to leave New York. From Senate Republicans who hollowed out New York's tough Rockefeller drug laws in 2009 to Democrats who passed so called bail reform in 2019, New York has become a Mecca for criminals. While drug dealers saw their sentences reduced, bail reform revolutionized the criminal justice system in New York for all the wrong reasons. While there is agreement that bail should not be used in a punitive manner but to ensure the accused returns to court, it also ensures violent criminals remain in jail pending their trial. By expanding the list of non-bail eligible offenses, criminals began to run amok during Covid. In 2022, the Democrat controlled New York legislature added some additional offenses that were bail eligible, however they refused to allow a judge to consider a defendant's dangerousness. Add in Progressive Soros funded District Attorneys like Alvin Bragg, felonies become misdemeanors and repeat offenders keep offending often ending with tragic results for countess victims. Hochul's parole board has released thirty six cop killers since 2017. With no death penalty and no real life sentences, where is the justice? Now if any New York resident decides to get a gun to protect themselves, Hochul and the legislature reject your constitutional right to do so. When the Supreme Court ruled in Bruen that New York resident's are not required to show proper cause to licensing officials to carry a gun, Hochul and the legislature passed an even more restrictive gun law then the one that was struck down. In a fit of rage, Hochul promised to go back to muskets and claimed the new law would restrict the carriage of guns to a couple of streets. The common denominator, disdain for the people, our constitutional rights and her obligation to ensure public safety.
New York residents have many other concerns but these are the most significant. They want a voice. They want something to look forward to, hope for the future, the American Dream and their children's success. New York is on the wrong track. In 2022, Hochul had a close call with voters. Is she listening?