When Kathy Hochul became New York’s governor in August 2021, she inherited a state budget primed to overflow with tens of billions of dollars in federal pandemic aid and Wall Street–generated tax receipts. Revenues were further goosed by a sizable, if temporary, millionaire-earner tax hike imposed by her predecessor Andrew Cuomo, amid Covid-19 and the mass exodus of people from the Empire State.
The governor proceeded to put spending effectively on autopilot, allowing the state operating budget to swell about 20 percent over her first three fiscal years in office, with enough left over to cover $3 billion in one-shot splurges on property tax “rebates,” supplemental child tax credits, and a temporary suspension of the state motor-fuel excise tax—all conveniently timed to impress voters in advance of her election to a full term in 2022.
The post-pandemic boom is over, but Hochul’s “Money in Your Pockets” campaign continues. For New York’s 2026 fiscal year, the governor proposed a $252 billion all-funds budget, which she described as “balanced,” with “record reserves” and “no income tax increases.”…