Hans Pennink
If you think Albany has no choice but to spend a jaw-dropping $252 billion in taxpayer funds for the next year, as Gov. Hochul claims, just take a look at some of the things she’s planning to spend the money on.
Start with her statewide school cellphone ban: Hochul proposes $13.5 million to cover the costs of special digital pouches, lockers and additional staff to collect phones each day.
Meanwhile, for over a decade, enterprising educators around the US have used over-the-door shoe hangers as a smartphone drop in their classrooms as a simple and affordable solution.
(Amazon sells 30-pocket shoe holders for $15-$17 a pop vs. $30 per student for digital pouches.)
Remember the New York reparations commission Hochul OK’d last year?
Well, she’s giving the nine-member panel a one-year extension, plus $5 million more to continue studying possible payouts to black New Yorkers for slavery and other historic racial injustices.
And if the panel isn’t just for show, New Yorkers could be hit with billions in payout costs.
Next up: Mothers on public assistance will pocket an extra $1,200 cash for each newborn, plus expanded public assistance payments throughout their pregnancy — monthly cash instead of each trimester, as is current policy.
The waste also includes extending the handouts to rich entertainment-industry moguls via the state film credit (set to expire in 2034), burning $700 million a year, and even $200 million in grants for local pool renovations.
The budget’s fine print lists millions more in similar waste.
It’s truly mind-bending: If a quarter-trillion-dollar spending plan filled with pork and payouts to Hochul’s friends and allies — all paid for with your tax dollars — is the gov’s idea of an “affordability” agenda, imagine what her “unaffordable” agenda would look like.