The following appeared on Monday, June 10, 2024, in the Blank Slate Media newspaper chain and on its website, theisland360.com:

Well, well, well—Gov. Kathy Hochul has thrown in the towel on congestion pricing.

Hochul, who has proclaimed she is the Green Movement’s champion, who wants to take away our gas-run stoves, heating systems, and automobiles, has succumbed to pressure from Democratic pols (fearing voter backlash) and municipal and private sector unions.

I am not at all surprised by her announcement to suspend the congestion toll that was slated to commence on June 30.

Face it, Hochul has been a political chameleon throughout her public career. There was a time when she not only sought and accepted the nomination of the Conservative Party in one of her Western New York races but embraced the National Rifle Association as a candidate for Congress.

Let’s review the events surrounding the MTA’s congestion pricing program that caused Hochul to flip.

First there was the sticker shock. Passenger vehicles driving south of 60th Street in Manhattan at peak hours would pay $15; unit trucks $24; multi-unit trucks $36; buses $24; licensed sightseeing buses $36; and motorcycles $7.

Those huge charges upset the business, trucking, union, and political communities.

Local servicing companies from the outer boroughs announced they would pass down the toll costs to their Manhattan business customers. Business owners, in turn, intended to pass the added expense on to their retail customers. So, working-class folks would be stuck picking up the tab for the MTA’s latest financial scheme.

Next, there was a barrage of lawsuits filed in federal and state courts aimed at derailing the program.

After Albany rejected in April a plan to exempt government workers, nurses and first responders from having to pay the toll, a coalition of labor unions representing 400,000 municipal workers joined a suit filed earlier by the United Federation of Teachers.

“The congestion toll is just another crazy thing in the city,” said Harry Nespoli, boss of the City Municipal Labor Committee. “No one likes going into our pocket when we’re mandated to come in. These are the people who make the city run.”

There was, however, one ludicrous suit, filed by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, claiming the toll discriminated against New Jersey residents.

He appears to have forgotten that New Yorkers have been supporting for decades the Port Authority’s top money-losing transportation projects that cater to Jersey residents: the PATH subway and the 42nd Street bus terminal.

To cover those deficits, which total hundreds of millions of dollars annually, the PA expends tolls paid by New Yorkers and profits from LaGuardia and JFK airports.

To me, that’s very expensive interstate discrimination.

When announcing the halt, Hochul said she “cannot add another burden to working-class New Yorkers or create another obstacle to our continued economic recovery.” But she was disingenuous. The very next day, the New York Post reported “Gov. Hochul is pushing a New York City tax hike to replace the $15 congestion tolls she indefinitely postponed.”

As for the furious enviros who are weeping and moaning that they were betrayed, they will get over it. That constituency has nowhere to go. They are not going to suddenly embrace the Republican and Conservative parties to spite the Democrats.

What the green crowd has failed to grasp is that congestion pricing was the MTA’s “Hail Mary” pass to raise money—not to help the environment.

The MTA hoped to raise at least $1 billion a year from congestion tolls to finance $15 billion in long-term borrowing for capital projects. Ergo, the last thing the MTA would want is a decline in Midtown Manhattan traffic.

If Hochul really wants to salvage the MTA’s finances, she should consider shaking up the agency.

The management has been incompetent for years. It has been responsible for a bloated $7.8 billion payroll, egregious overtime that cost $1.37 billion last year, fare evasions to the tune of $750 million annually, and tens of billions of dollars in cost overruns to build the Long Island Rail Road extension to Grand Central Station, the Second Avenue subway, and the No. 7 train station to 10th Avenue.

Will Gov. Hochul have the grit to take on the MTA bureaucrats, the mass transportation public employee unions and the construction unions? I doubt it.

Instead of sticking it to the Power Brokers, I expect Hochul will stick the costs of the MTA’s fiscal follies to the most vulnerable—the commuters.

The following appeared on Monday, May 13, 2024, in the Blank Slate Media newspaper chain and on its website, theisland360.com:

In my last column, I noted that Gov. Hochul’s $237 billion spending plan—which is up 35% since 2019—is unsustainable due to anemic economic growth.

The state’s economy, which grew by only 0.7% last year vs. 2.5% nationally, is not expected to grow much this year and the state’s monstrous $16 billion structural deficit will escalate.

Adding to the bleak economic picture is the never-ending exodus of Wall Street firms to Florida, which unlike New York does not have a state income tax or estate tax.

The New York Post reported May 8 that “160 Wall Street firms have moved out of the Big Apple in recent years—56 of which took their business to Florida, sucking a whopping $1 trillion in financial assets under management out of Manhattan.” That shift, according to Bloomberg News, “has paved the way for a ‘Wall Street South.’”

Financial moguls who ditched New York included Carl Ichan and hedge fund giant Paul Singer of Elliott Management.

While New York’s commercial real estate 20% vacancy rate is at an all-time high, Florida’s office rentals are booming, particularly in Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, and Boca Raton.

If the wealthiest continue to rush to the exit doors, New York’s income tax collection will take a major hit. Why?  Because 1% of households—76,000 out of 7,600,000—pay nearly 50% of the state’s total income tax revenue.

Think about it. If another 10,000 to 15,000 of those households move out in the next couple of years, New York will be in even deeper financial trouble.

Its tax base will be shattered.

The state’s share of Medicaid costs, which have spiraled from $22 billion in 2021 to $36 billion in 2023, is budgeted to increase by only $900 million. However, estimated costs in recent budgets have consistently been wrong. And there is no reason to think that this budget year will be any different. Cost overruns will further exacerbate the structural deficit. (To cover themselves, Albany pols buried in the budget a new $4 billion tax on Managed Care Organization health insurance plans.)

There’s more bad budget news.

The resurrection of the 421-a tax break, that incentivizes the construction of new apartment rentals, is a shadow of its former self.

To keep that item in the budget, the governor surrendered to the radical leftists in her party.

The new program has two flaws that will be construction project killers.

First, it significantly lowers the income threshold for eligible tenants of “affordable” apartments in any new development. This policy will make it more difficult for new housing projects to be profitable.

Next, according to Two Trees Management, a major apartment building developer, the program imposes “certain wages that are consistently higher than the past, whether with union or non-union labor.” Newsday, stating the program increases wages and benefits to be at least $40 per hour, called it a “boon for unions.”

Real estate journalist Steve Cuozzo at the Post has reported “that the misbegotten measure has killed plans for River Ring, a $1 billion four-acre complex on Brooklyn’s East River Waterfront” that was to be built by developer Two Trees management.

The budget’s “Squatter” law is more hype than substance.

The Empire Center’s Cam Macdonald, in an analysis titled “A Squatter ‘Fix’ That May Fix Squat,” concluded, “The new provision that makes it certain in statute that squatters are not tenants may reduce confusion about the rights of persons who occupy property for more than 30 days. And such clarification may give property owners greater confidence to enlist assistance from police in self-help evictions, but it didn’t change the rights they already had prior to this month.”

In other words, Macdonald wrote, “property owners unwilling or unable to use self-help must endure the same expenses and delays in eviction proceedings that a clearer definition of squatting does not help.”

So, despite all the claims by Hochul and her legislative confreres that they passed a responsible budget, it appears it is another “smoke and mirrors” plan that panders to special interests while increasing spending, taxes, and pork.