Gov. Hochul’s 2024 State of the State Address was an improvement over her past performances — but this “franchise” has a long way to go.
Local audiences had every right to expect a speech that genuinely reflected their state’s current predicament: its nation-leading hemorrhage of residents, high crime, flood of migrants and $22 billion in red ink over the next three years.
The speech’s best moments waved in that direction: “Thieves brazenly tear items off the shelves and menace employees. These attacks are nothing more than a breakdown of the social order,” she thundered of the public “atmosphere of anxiety,” and “Safety at the grocery store, the synagogue, the subway is always top of mind.”
And: “I say, no more” to “baby formula locked behind plastic panels” and “people suffering a mental breakdown or an overdose” on the subway.
But she also delivered a disjointed series of stilted vignettes about great investments she’s made with your money — such as an added $5.3 billion for (over-funded, under-performing) schools.
And about how she’s held the line on taxes, even “cutting them for the middle class” — when, in fact, she raised them on downstate businesses, with painful ripple effects on employees and customers.
And of course her live audience of members of the Legislature surely took her fine line, “We cannot spend money we do not have,” as a challenge to find more money to spend (by bleeding the taxpayers even more).
Her overall storyline could’ve been compelling if the rest of the script held up: New York has “work to do,” Hochul declared, and even acknowledged challenges, like the state’s decades-long population loss.
But she pulled the punch out of her own narrative: People aren’t fleeing, in her account, because of New York’s highest-in-the-nation taxes — since, after all, many moved to neighboring states, where taxes are also high.
Except plenty of top taxpayers and their companies are fleeing those levies, to places like Florida, which has no personal income tax, and plenty of low-tax states.
Meanwhile, few businesses come here without major taxpayer bribes.
And while Hochul noted New York’s “persistent crime,” her dialogue focused mainly on retail theft, hate crimes and domestic violence — leaving the audience puzzled about the scant mention of, say, the 386 murders in New York City last year, a 32% jump over its 2017 low of 292.
Or of car thefts, up 191% over 2019.
Things added up even less as the show concluded with plot jumps so fantastic no audience could suspend disbelief.
Hochul wants to create a “whopping” $20 million pot for prosecutors to share to pursue domestic abuse; a task force will curb retail theft — though perps will still get set free moments after arrest under the state’s (also unmentioned) broken bail laws. And so on.
Perhaps most glaring, the speech only teased when it came to two of the state’s biggest dilemmas — the waves of migrants and monster multibillion-dollar budget gaps: Those plot-lines, she announced, will be the focus of her sequel next week, when she rolls out her budget plans.
To be fair, Hochul was never meant for this role: She’s an understudy vaulted into the spotlight when the previous star got yanked in a #MeToo scandal; at least this speech leaves hope she’ll give New York more of what it needs down the line.
Even if that means overcoming her “supporting cast: a Legislature packed with venal time-servers and wacko ideologues.
Give it one and half stars, with a chance for better next time.
Review: Some fine moments but a plot that defies belief. Sixty-one uneven minutes. 1 1/2 stars.
