The following appeared on Monday, March 7, 2022, in the Blank Slate Media newspaper chain and on its website, theisland360.com:

In the spring of 2021, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo approved a record-breaking $212 billion spending plan for the fiscal year that began on April 1.

Spending all of the $12.2 billion, one-shot federal COVID revenue was not enough revenue to balance his budget. To meet that end, Cuomo deferred $3.5 billion in Medicaid payments into the next fiscal year and raised taxes.

New York’s highest earners now pay a 10.9 percent state income tax. In addition, a 1 percent surtax was added to the state’s capital gains tax. Estate taxes jumped from 16 percent to 20 percent on estates valued over $10 million. The corporate franchise tax went from 6.5 percent to 7.25 percent.

Cuomo’s budget, which increased by a staggering 10 percent in 2021, was twice the expense budget of Florida, which has 3 million more people than the Empire State.

In 2021 and early 2020, additional revenues continued to flow into the state’s coffer. There were more federal pandemic dollars, and thanks to an expanding economy, significantly more tax revenue.

“Initially,” state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli noted in his recent analysis of the state’s fiscal year, “tax collections were expected to increase only 10.6%; however, year to date collections have increased 31.2 percent.”

This was all good news for Gov. Kathy Hochul as she prepared an election year budget that appeases big government radicals in her party and state and municipal employees.

Hochul recommended more spending even though there are ominous signs that the economy may slow down this year, and inflation is hitting levels New Yorkers have not witnessed since the early 1980s.

The bloated budget Hochul presented to the state Legislature not only spends the excess revenues but includes another $5 billion in capital funding from President Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Hence, total spending is projected to increase to $217 billion. And that’s before insatiable legislators begin negotiating for more swag for their favorite interest groups.

It should come as no surprise that the biggest spending increase is school aid. To placate teacher unions, the Executive Budget proposes $31.2 billion in aid, up 7.1 percent from the previous fiscal year.

There is the proposal to move forward with the final phase-in of the so-called “middle class” tax cuts, but that’s a pittance—about $162 million in relief.

While the Hochul administration is boasting that her budget increases reserves in various “rainy day” funds, totals will still be relatively low. Reserves, projected to be $6.1 billion, are far below the permissible maximum level of $19.4 billion.

And Hochul’s proposed reserve numbers are a bit deceptive. The state comptroller’s report states that the increase “disproportionately utilizes informal, unrestricted reserves by leaving resources in the General Fund with the administrative designation ‘reserve for economic uncertainties.’”

Those funds are very fungible. They “could be obligated and spent at any time at the Department of Budget’s discretion, for any appropriate purpose,” the report says.

How convenient.

Furthermore, the comptroller notes, these “informal reserves have no obligation of being replenished. Accordingly, such funds do not have the same stabilizing value as formal, statutorily restricted revenues.”

Then there’s the lack of budgetary transparency and accountability. Like her predecessor’s budgets, Hochul’s financial plan “identifies billions of dollars allocated to broadly define purposes with no specificity.” In other words, billions in appropriations could be easily misused.

Another Cuomo budget gimmick Hochul is adopting: the comptroller’s oversight authority to pre-review contracts for Medicare managed care contracts and competitive bidding requirements are slated to be eliminated.

Thanks to the influx of windfall revenues, Hochul had an opportunity to repeal last year’s income tax increases and to truly replenish the state’ depleted reserve funds.

Instead, Hochul chose to continue Cuomo’s tax-and-spend policies. This may get her past the election in November, but come 2023, when the “free” money from Washington runs dry and the economy tanks, there will be dire consequences for New York taxpayers who will be the ones stuck paying the tab for Hochul’s largesse with even higher taxes.

The following appeared on Monday, February 21, 2022, in the Blank Slate Media newspaper chain and on its website, theisland360.com:

Last year I warned readers that federal and state progressives were plotting to enact laws that would grant Washington or Albany the power to override local single-family housing zoning laws.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, a one-time centrist who has moved to the far left to secure a long-term lease on the executive mansion, jumped on the “abolish local zoning” bandwagon in January.

In a 237-page manifesto, “A New Era For New York,” released in conjunction with her January State of the State address, Hochul called for eliminating so-called “antiquated zoning laws” to end a housing shortage.

The manifesto stated: “to reduce housing costs, Governor Hochul will propose legislation to require municipalities to allow a minimum of one Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) on owner-occupied residentially zoned lots.”

Such legislation, if signed into law, would effectively kill the historic authority of taxpayers, via their elected local representatives, to determine the kind of housing they want in their neighborhood.

Interestingly, the first elected official out of the shoot to condemn Hochul’s proposal was a Nassau County Democrat. In a press conference in early February, Congressman Tom Suozzi, who is challenging Hochul for the gubernatorial nomination, came out swinging. He said, “I don’t believe in taking away zoning control from our local governments. I don’t believe in eliminating home rule and I don’t believe in the state imposing their will on local governments.”

Hochul’s proposal, Suozzi concluded, “would actually end single-family housing in New York state.”

Suozzi’s comments hit a nerve. Suddenly numerous Democrats began to panic. Supporting the governor’s plan, they feared, could cost them their legislative seats in November.

On Feb. 9, Northport Democratic state Sen. James Gaughran announced his opposition to Hochul’s housing plan. “One of the concerns I have is this law in itself may take away the … power of local community boards to really have discretion on [ADU] applications.”

Even New York City Mayor Eric Adams jumped off Hochul’s housing bandwagon. “There is no one size fits all,” he said. “I’m sure we can deal with the housing crisis we are facing, and local government can make those decisions in a smart way.”

Local elected officials were not the only ones fearing a voter backlash at the polls.

Several Albany insiders I know told me on Feb. 8 that Hochul’s staff realized they had made a mistake and were looking for a way out of the dilemma without stepping on too many progressive toes.

Then, after Hochul secured her party’s nomination for governor, lo and behold, she backtracked.

“Since my days in local government,” the governor opined, “I have believed strongly in the importance of consensus building and listening to communities and my fellow policy makers.”

Hence, she concluded, “I have heard real concerns about the proposed approach” from state senators and submitted a “30-day amendment to my budget legislation that removes requirements on localities…”

So much for Hochul’s newly founded progressive principles. Nevertheless, I will not look a gift horse in the mouth and will savor the victory.

But supporters of home rule must remain vigilant: There is filed in Albany other legislation dedicated to destroying single-family neighborhoods more Draconian than Hochul’s discarded proposal. And with super Democratic majorities in the state Senate and Assembly, a gubernatorial veto of such legislation can be overridden.

Remember, progressive elites have historically despised single-family housing. For example, when the 20th century’s leading New York progressive, Robert Moses, controlled New York City’s Planning Commission, Slum Clearance Committee, and City Construction Board in the 1950s and 1960s, he loved using eminent domain powers to bulldoze single-family row houses and to build huge multi-family housing projects, which today are sadly examples of urban blight.

And 21st Century progressives want to impose on suburban neighborhoods similar projects.

Why have suburban neighborhoods been the targets of the schemes of leftist social engineers?

In my judgment, the noted sociologist Andrew Greeley, explained it best:
“The neighborhood is rejected by our intellectual and cultural elites … precisely because the neighborhood is not modern, and what is not modern is conservative, reactionary, unprogressive, unenlightened, superstitious, and just plain wrong … Neighborhoods are narrow, they are local, they are ‘parochial.’ How can any well-educated, sophisticated, cosmopolitan, ‘modern’ person possibly believe that there is anything good from something as parochial as the neighborhood? How indeed.”

Inner City urban renewal schemes prescribed by elitist government bureaucrats, administrators and planners failed. Let’s make sure those discredited policies are not pursued in Nassau County.