State lawmakers are set to miss Tuesday’s budget deadline, and the bottom line is sure to be bloated, but some good may yet come out of it — if Gov. Kathy Hochul stands tough.
The gov proposed a ginormous, $263 billion spending plan for next year, up 4.5% from last year, including a wildly reckless 10% bump for Medicaid.
Spend-happy Assembly lawmakers want to add $3 billion on top of that, and state senators $10 billion — and both houses would slap New Yorkers with steep new tax hikes.
(They can’t bankrupt the state soon enough.)
Yet Hochul is running for reelection on a vow to improve “affordability”; she’s pledged to block both the income and corporate tax hikes Mayor Zohran Mamdani and lefty lawmakers are pushing.
She’d even end the state tax on tips, matching what President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill did for federal taxes.
Yet the gov has caved on key issues in years past; who knows if she’ll the hold the line now?
How pathetic, and tragic, if she surrenders on tax hikes.
Or abandons her push to bring down lower auto-insurance rates by reining in abuses: She wants to crack down on criminals who stage crashes; cap payouts for drivers who commit crimes during an accident; limit what qualifies as a “serious injury” to avoid bonanza payouts for minor wounds, along with other reforms.
Sadly, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bruce Blakeman is backing trial lawyers and opposing Hochul’s plan — pretending it’s somehow a giveaway to Uber rather than a boon for all motorists.
The gov’s also admitting (some) reality on the state’s climate law — namely, that it’s rocketing up costs for New Yorkers and making the state’s power grid unreliable.
Her asks here are (much too) modest: Push back the insane deadlines for cutting emissions, and change the method for calculating CO2 output to align with nearly all other states.
Finally, Hochul wants to cut (some) needless environmental-review red tape to spur more housing — which the state desperately needs.
All good, if small steps, but again: Will she stick to them through tough budget talks?
Another danger: Hochul’s hinted about rolling back savings from pension plans for Tier 6 government workers (i.e., those who started after April 1, 20120).
That’s nuts: The state is desperate for cash, yet such a rollback would cost taxpayers $700 million a year, sparking property-tax hikes — simply to sweeten benefits for public employees who already have better plans than private-sector workers.
As the budget heads into overtime, the core questions remains: How much more pain is the public in for, and can Hochul deliver any relief at all for the people of New York?
