POLITICS: Chameleon Kathy Hochul softens us up for another tax hike

And so it begins: Gov. Kathy Hochul is edging her way to yet another flip-flop in a career that’s one long string of them — this time, preparing for a tax hike she knows will be bad for New York but could save her political skin.

The overriding goal for our principle-poor gov: Appeasing Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and his socialist allies — lest the Jacobins oust her in next June’s Democratic primary or support a general-election third-party candidate. 

Hochul first made the statewide spotlight as a county clerk crusading against drivers licenses for illegal immigrants; these days, her Department of Motor Vehicles hands them out like candy — not even requiring a first name on a commercial license.

Now the self-described “staunch capitalist” is preparing to hike corporate tax rates to fund Mamdani’s planned $10 billion of (first year) freebies.

Back in June, she declared: “I’m not raising taxes at a time where affordability is the big issue.”

Yet as December opens, she’s telling Fox 5: “I’m not raising income taxes because I believe that we want to make sure that New York is more affordable for everybody and I want people who are successful to keep creating the jobs and investing here.”

By February, she may be backing off on income taxes, too.

As for affordability: Corporations pass tax hikes on to their customers via higher prices — or they pick up and leave for some friendlier locale: Florida, Texas, Tennessee . . . taking all their tax payments, and their employees’ salaries, with them.

And of course plenty more just never come to New York at all.

We expect the gov to insist it’s The Donald who made her do it, not The Zohran: She figures New Yorkers will buy the claims of “savage” federal cuts — which in reality will amount to slower-than-once-planned increases in aid, not actual reductions.

The chameleon act has kept Hochul rising in politics for decades now; maybe she can pull it off for one more campaign. 

But Mamdani’s howling socialist jackals are a different beast: Notably, they’ve put out a call for members to “infiltrate” community boards, PTAs and assorted other grassroot institutions “to create a sense of mass ownership over the city” and to “build support” for Mamdani’s radical agenda.

The problem with paying the bullies to go away is that they always come back demanding more; if Hochul gives the progressives one tax hike in 2026, they’ll be back demanding twice as much in 2027.

Sadly, if she wins re-election in November, she’ll likely spend her entire next four years giving in to the far left: No one expects her to run in 2030, so she’ll be free to throw all New York taxpayers to the wolves.