Taking her state budget victory tour to New York City, Gov. Kathy Hochul talked up her tax cutting plans Wednesday, which include rebate checks to millions of New Yorkers.
Hochul is also using the budget deal as a political talking point to contrast herself with President Donald Trump.
“I vowed to deliver on a sweeping affordability agenda that does something that is so profound yet so simple: putting more money back in your pockets!” said New York’s Buffalo-born governor, re-upping her personal connection to her state budget in Midtown.
“I understood what it was like when you go to the suburban Costco. I lived in the city, but you go out there and get a big shopping cart and load it up with the discount paper towels and the toilet paper rolls,” she added.
She was recalling a time when she wasn’t the highest paid governor in the country.
“Anything I could do to knock a few dollars off, I cut all those coupons out,” she said.
Now, she’s touting her plan to enact a tax cut, expand a tax credit for families with kids and give up to $400 in checks to both single and joint tax filers.
While celebrating, Hochul also drew a sharp contrast between her own budget — and the fiscal plans of the Republican in the White House.
“It’s only been 100 days — 101. 1,362 left,” she remarked of Trump’s first 100 days.
She also decried the fluctuating stock market, effects of tariffs and the firing of federal workers.
“Looking at the contraction of our economy. We’ve always grown, that is our strength, America always grows, we don’t shrink!,” she said.
She recalled one story of a fired federal worker, a veteran.
“A veteran who did tours of duty in Afghanistan came back and wanted to return the favor to his fellow veterans, worked at the VA office in the Bronx, got a note on Valentine’s Day that you’re fired,” she said.
Commenting on high prices: “I’m done talking about the price of eggs, just give up eating them,” she exclaimed.
“You can make a really good chocolate cake with applesauce,” she added.
It’s also a contrast to Mayor Eric Adams’s friendly approach to the administration, especially on immigration policy.
Hochul’s state budget hawks estimate the Trump administration threatened $1.3 billion in program funding.
She also opened a hotline for businesses concerned with tariffs costs.
“An individual who sells boats, he was going to bring in a boat, I think it was an $800,000 boat, which I can’t imagine what that looks like, a very large boat, but the tariffs on that were going to be $2 million,” she explained one story told to her.
A spokesman for the White House did not return an immediate request for comment.
Meanwhile, lawmakers are still busy discussing other policy and financial measures in the budget agreement. They are on track to vote on the entire package within the coming days.