In Tuesday’s State of the State speech, Gov. Kathy Hochul made clear how deeply worried she is . . . about her reelection in 2026.
She feigned concern about voters’ top issues, like crime and “affordability,” yet offered little reason to hope for progress on either front.
“Your family is my fight,” Hochul vowed as she pushed various initiatives that sound good on paper.
But don’t be fooled.
Yes, her proposed tax cuts are better than nothing, but they’re far too small and limited.
Her “inflation refund” amounts to $500 (or less), though Bidenflation has reduced real incomes by thousands a year.
And inflation has permanently hiked prices; her checks (funded by your taxes) are a one-off bribe.
Plus, Hochul pretends she’s addressing “affordability” right after slapping a new $9 tax on anyone driving into Manhattan below 60th Street.
Facing public fury over dangerous mentally ill people plaguing the streets and subways, the gov calls for an expansion of involuntary commitment and strengthening Kendra’s law, which mandates treatment.
Yet her past clashes with lawmakers suggest she won’t win meaningful fixes there, either.
On crime, she’s singing a new tune — unlike when she nearly lost the 2022 election after claiming it wasn’t an issue.
“The chaos must end,” she now huffs. She’s promising more cops on subways and wants judges to “stop the rinse-and-repeat cycle of offenders being released.”
Again, fine words. But to end recidivism and drive crime down, she needs to deliver major fixes to the laws fueling crime — cashless bail, Raise the Age, etc.
And she won’t touch those with a 10-foot pole.
Nor will she abandon the state’s disastrous green agenda, which imposes ever-higher costs on every New Yorker even as it increasingly puts the state’s electric grid at risk.
Oh, and she’s fine with horrific public schools; she offered no plan to raise (or scrap) the cap on public charters, which outperform them.
The gov did call for free school breakfasts and lunches (even for those who can afford to pay), free community college and universal child care.
All to be funded by taxpayers, when the state already faces $15.6 billion in “structural” red ink.
In a bid to shore up her left flanks, meanwhile, Hochul threw in several (ludicrous) digs at big “bad” corporate boogeymen.
Most egregiously, she actually claimed that the LA fires are “what the future will hold if we sacrifice Mother Nature on the altar of profit.”
No, that’s what you get when state and local governments don’t do their jobs — much like the failure of New York’s government to see that repeat criminals get jailed and imprisoned.
Hochul realizes her reelection is in serious trouble, with only 33% of voters saying they’d back her.
Too bad she has no clue about how to turn that around.
