Dear Editor:
What part of the affordability crisis doesn’t Gov. Hochul understand?
New Yorkers pay the highest taxes and fees in the nation. Insurance costs are through the roof. Electricity bills force families to choose between turning up the heat or putting food on the table. And yet she thinks it’s acceptable to raise state spending by another $6 billion?
Apparently, Gov. Hochul believes money grows on trees. How else can you explain the $260 billion budget she has proposed? More than $4 billion of that increase is going to illegal immigrants, while the citizens who actually pay these taxes are given the cold shoulder.
Why is government so much less expensive in Florida? That state spends roughly half of what New York does, yet has three million more residents. It also has no state income tax—another way Gov. Hochul and her friends in Albany bleed New Yorkers dry.
For years, people talked about leaving New York “someday.” Now it’s reality, and the numbers prove it. Our state leads the nation in out-migration. We know exactly where people are going: Florida and other states where politicians aren’t crushing them. They’re voting with their feet—and taking their pensions and paychecks with them. Leaving New York often means an instant raise and a better standard of living.
The most offensive part of this story is Gov. Hochul’s plan to replace these citizens with illegal immigrants. She wants to put them on government services and handouts paid for by the rest of us, then harvest their votes. It’s a sickening strategy designed to keep herself in office.
I hope the people of this state wake up before it’s too late.—Edith Chase, Coram