By New York Post (Opinion) | Created at 2026-08-11 22:21:56 | Updated at 2026-08-11 23:11:14
57 minutes ago
Gov. Kathy Hochul speaks during a press conference in New York.
Matt Roberts/Shutterstock
Gov. Kathy Hochul is looking to have it both ways yet again.
This time, she’s rushing to dodge fury over the pied-à-terre tax she passed into law to please Mayor Zohran — after months of taking credit for it from tax-the-rich lefties.
Remember: The gov initially boasted about the surcharge on out-of-town property owners, insisting its targets need to “pay their fair share.”
“We’re talking about people who are ultra-wealthy,” she said — falsely, since the tax hits owners not just of one- to three-family homes worth $5 million and up, but also of coops and condos valued as low as $1 million.
That was itself a reversal, since she’d vowed time and again to not raise taxes this year, until Mamdani’s mayoral win suggested political winds were shifting.
Now she’s embarrassed by City Hall’s rollout of her tax — the mayor’s gloating videos and social-media posts, his nasty enemies list — and acting like she’d barely even heard of the tax that her own office designed.
“We’re not responsible,” she pleaded Monday, as a judge slapped a freeze on it. “It’s up to [the city’s] tax department.”
More butt-covering: The state will “encourage City Hall to try and streamline this.”
Gee, thanks, gov.
Not that she can stop showing the other face: Her spokesman still stressed that Hochul believes “people who can afford a multimillion-dollar second home . . . can afford to pay their fair share.”
Why is an added tax fair, anyway? These people use far less of the public services their regular property taxes pay for.
More important: I she down with Mamdani’s “tax the rich” agenda or not?
If she wants the credit, she has to take the blame, too.
But that’s not how Hochul rolls.
When her congestion-pricing plan caused an uproar, she halted it . . . until after the next election.
Then she bragged about lowering the toll from $15 to $9, claiming credit for saving motorists 40% — even as she hit them with thousands in new yearly costs.
When her radical climate plan sent utility bills skyrocketing, sparking more anger, she delayed parts of it, boasting she made New York more “affordable” . . . even as she swore to greenies she’s as committed as ever to their zero-emissions lunacy.
No wonder she’s ducking debate challenges from challenger Bruce Blakeman, who’d surely call her on all this.
Hochul thinks “if she avoids enough debates, New Yorkers will forget” she’s the country’s worst governor, charged Blakeman, citing the states’ nation-leading taxes and electric bills.
She knows her only debate against Lee Zeldin in 2022 nearly cost her the election: Hochul insisted she was “focused on public safety,” then when he accused her of diddling as crime soared, she responded: “I don’t know why that’s so important to you.”
Zeldin came closer to winning that year than any Republican in the prior three decades.
She doesn’t dare let Blakeman confront either of her two faces, lest he actually beat her in November.
