Kathy Hochul delivered the annual State of the State Address in Albany, with a speech focusing on the needs of families, affordability, and public safety. New York City Mayor Eric Adams had expressed hope that the governor would back his policies, including a plan for involuntary commitment of mentally ill homeless people on the city’s streets and subway system, as well as his “Axe the Tax” cut for low-income earners, and discovery reform. “When she makes something part of her budget announcement, it becomes a rallying cry,” he said in a press briefing on Monday. Adams’ priorities were reflected in the governor’s message to the state today.
Kathy Hochul laid out a number of subsidies and tax benefits her office is proposing to boost the economic outlook for New York families. She first announced a “sweeping” middle-class tax cut for those making less than $323,000, promising that such a measure would save taxpayers over a billion dollars. According to Census Bureau, median income in New York State is around $84,000.
The governor also proposed tripling the maximum tax benefit to $1,000 for babies and children up to four years old, and school-age children up to $500. She also proposed an “inflation refund,” which would be a rebate check taken directly from “excess sales tax revenue” caused by inflation. Such ideas track with those offered by Adams lately for city residents with his “Axe the Tax for the Working Class,” an income tax cut for those living at or below 150% of the federal poverty line.
The governor also echoed the mayor’s rhetoric on public safety in the city, warning that “we cannot allow our subway to be a rolling homeless shelter.” She announced the deployment of more unformed officers on the subway system from 9p.m. to 5a.m. for the next six months, with the state footing the bill, and also backed Adams’ proposed legislation to expand involuntary hospitalization of the mentally ill living on the streets and in subway stations. Hochul called critics of such measures “flat-out wrong” for claiming they criminalize poverty and homelessness. “This is about having the humanity and the compassion to help people incapable of helping themselves,” Hochul declared in her speech today.
Once a dividing line between liberals and conservatives on one side and progressives on the other, involuntary commitments have now found more broad-based support, with mayoral candidates to Adams’ left like State Sen. Jessica Ramos and city Comptroller Brad Lander declaring their support for such measures as well. Hochul assured skeptics that the sites where those swept up in these programs would be cared for are different from the “prison-like institutions of the past.”
The governor and mayor also found themselves in agreement over making changes to discovery reforms passed in 2019 after the suicide of Kalief Browder, who languished in solitary confinement on Rikers Island for three years without trial after being falsely accused of stealing a backpack. Hochul vowed to “close those loopholes” in discovery laws that allow accused to walk free on “minor technicalities.”
Kalief’s law, as the reform is known, forces DAs to communicate discovery to the defense attorneys within a set time frame, whereas before the reforms, lawyers for defendants could find themselves receiving the prosecution’s evidence against them the night before trial, with little opportunity to analyze it and provide a robust defense. Instances of cases being tossed out have increased since this deadline was instituted. DAs like Manhattan’s Alvin Bragg have advocated for its removal, while advocates claim that the law is working as it should, with the number of more serious felony indictment dismissals remaining steady despite the overall rise across all cases.
Governor Kathy Hochul first took office as governor after Andrew Cuomo resigned in 2021 amidst allegations of sexual harassment from staffers. She won a full term against Republican congressman Lee Zeldin in 2022, and will face reelection in 2026.
