For many New Yorkers, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s State of the State address felt less like a progress report and more like an SOS — a distress signal from a state buckling under the crushing weight of an affordability crisis.
Responses to my recent constituent survey told the same sad story: New York has become wildly unaffordable for almost everyone. Over and over, respondents complained about soaring housing costs, escalating school taxes, over-the-top utility bills and the never-ending list of state fees as the reasons they’re falling behind.
Yet our detached governor spoke about this crisis as though it mysteriously fell from thin air — an economic disaster with no one to blame, rather than the result of years of poor policy decisions made by her administration and Albany Democrats. What’s worse, her so-called “solutions” actually double down on those bad ideas. Her latest proposals would pile on more costs while conveniently sidestepping her very policies that make everyday life here so expensive to begin with…