The governor can’t preach affordability at the same time she’s looking to “go big or go home”
A weekly COLUMN by NY State Senator Tom O’Mara
It’s no surprise that Governor Kathy Hochul opened last week’s State of the State message to the Legislature with a focus on affordability.
“I am proud to lead the fight to protect communities and build an economy that works for all…and it starts with making life more affordable,” the governor proclaimed as she kicked off a new legislative session and, it can’t be overlooked, her hopes for reelection next November. That part of it can’t be overlooked because so many decisions coming out of Albany throughout the coming months will be politically motivated and in politics at the moment, the “affordability” issue is at the top of the heap, especially in New York.
Of course, that was also the case last January, when the governor opened her 2025 address this way: “New Yorkers are struggling. Inflation. Sky-high rents. Wages that just feel like they can’t keep up. A changing economy. An influx of unexpected arrivals with great needs and an unsettled world. That’s why I fight day in and day out to make New York safer, healthier, cleaner, and more affordable for you and your family.”
The reality is that you can look back over the past several years and find “affordability” as a key theme – high taxes and a prohibitive cost of living has burdened New Yorkers for years now.
It’s one thing to keep talking about affordability. It’s another thing to do something about it.
The hard truth is that while there’s been plenty of talk out of Albany over the past several years about the need to make New York State a more affordable place to live, work, and raise a family, the actions out of Albany during this same time have done nothing short of make our state an increasingly expensive state in which to live, work, raise a family, or run a business.
That’s especially true surrounding the cost of government itself, which has skyrocketed out of control since this state fell under one-party, all-Democrat control in 2019. The statistics tell the alarming story:
- In the past five years alone, state spending has increased by $81 billion;
- New York ranks 50th out of 50th in tax competitiveness in America, according to the latest index from the Tax Foundation;
- New York ranks 45th for affordability in a recent U.S. News & World Report ranking;
- New Yorkers pay 49% more than the national average for electricity;
- New Yorkers live under the 3rd highest rate of housing cost burden among all states, according to the state comptroller.
And on it goes with no true relief in sight. Despite the governor saying last week that “the state of the state is strong,” the word on the street tells a far different reality.
Consequently, all this Democrat talk about affordability can only be met with skepticism. The proof, as they say, will be in the pudding. The first taste of that pudding will be when the governor unveils her initial proposed state budget in the coming week. The true taste of the pudding arrives following negotiations in the months ahead with an all-Democrat State Legislature that sure sounds determined to forge ahead with their big-spending ways.
How high will they go this year? One recent news article put it this way, “All indications are that when (Governor Hochul) releases her budget proposal next week, (she will) will adopt the fiscal policy known as ‘kick the can down the road,’ deferring hard decisions until they can be delayed no longer.”
So we’re about to find out the nuts-and-bolts of where New York State’s headed. There are plenty of warning signs flashing throughout the governor’s recent speech. My initial reaction is that we’re still right back where we started from. The governor can’t preach affordability at the same time she’s looking to “go big or go home,” as she likes to say, on spending taxpayer dollars like there’s not a care in the world. You can’t keep trying to have it both ways and the governor knows it. Sooner or later the well runs dry and taxpayers can’t take it anymore.
Numerous indicators show that we’re already at that breaking point in New York State. There’s an old saying that if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. We need to stop spending in New York. Albany Democrats have been digging the hole deeper and deeper in this state over the past seven years with their out-of-control spending and it sure seems like it’s going to continue. The turnaround doesn’t appear to be on the horizon for taxpayers who keep getting the “payment due” notices. The Democrat tax-and-spend approach isn’t working and yet there are prominent, influential, far-left Democrats in power in New York (including and especially New York City’s new Democratic-Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani) who believe that this state doesn’t tax or spend nearly enough.
The day before Governor Hochul began setting the stage for this year’s budget negotiations, our Senate Republican Minority Conference offered up a different direction — and voice — for this state, one that we’re calling “Save New York.”
Our “Save New York” agenda prioritizes restoring affordability and building a stronger and safer New York focused on overriding policy goals including affordability and economic opportunity, more commonsense energy policies, and government accountability.
It’s a decidedly uphill fight in this state as it currently stands under total one-party control. Still, we’ll keep fighting for it. You can read more about it on my Senate website at: omara.nysenate.gov.
