Albany’s budget deal locks in an uglier future for New York

Once again, Albany’s budget deal fully made good on its nickname, the “Big Ugly” — locking in an uglier future for New York.

Gov.Hochul can claim a few wins, but only at the cost of crucial concessions that will continue to drive the state’s decline.

She prevented new tax hikes — but the “emergency” one imposed early in the pandemic remains in place, apparently permanent.

She won modestly tougher treatment on retail theft and illegal pot shops — without even trying to repair the larger criminal-justice “reforms” that have crime locked in well above pre-COVID levels.

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She got NYC mayoral control renewed for another two years — at the price of watering it down by giving the Legislature the power to choose a new seat (the chairman!) of the city Panel for Educational Policy.

She pushed through a new (badly compromised) version of the 421-a tax break that’s key to new housing construction in the city, and tiny fiddles to the 2019 rent “reforms” that are pushing thousands of units off the market entirely (and small landlords into insolvency) — yet also OK’d landmark new “Good Cause” rent controls for Gotham.

Somewhere in the muddle, she also agreed to $4 billion in added spending — and to a rollback of vital public-pension reforms; this will cost taxpayers in the neighborhood of another $4 billion.

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Nor did she get her proposed school-funding reforms: Districts with plummeting enrollment still get “held harmless” from state-aid cuts.

Nor most of her push to rein in soaring Medicaid outlays.

The final state-spending total, $237 billion for the year, more than a third higher than the final pre-pandemic budget, a huge spike in just four years.

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And the structural deficit (the amount the state will need to find cash to cover in coming years) is now about $16 billion.

Plus, all this comes with zero transparency about the details, not even basic financial-plan tables so the public and independent experts can judge the true impact.

Hochul may pat herself on the back for holding back some of progressives’ worst excesses, but New York’s lurch left continues.

Albany is nowhere near even talking about anything that can build a brighter future — school choice (more charters), tax cuts, fracking and so on.

Madam Governor: When you identity some ways to make New York truly more attractive to the residents and businesses now fleeing the state, and resolve to fight for them, come back to us.

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