POLITICS: Heastie has a better idea than Hochul’s lame $3B inflation ‘refund’ checks

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan for $500 “inflation rebate” checks is a ridiculous way to spend this year’s estimated $3 billion state surplus, exceeded only progressives’ lust to spend it on their own pet giveaways; for once, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has the most sensible idea.

Hochul’s scheme is to try bribing voters via refund checks of $300 to $500 refund checks in the fall.

Some Assembly and Senate Democrats, meanwhile, call to devote the surplus to fund pre-k and afterschool programs, doubling the school tax relief (STAR) credit, buy electric school buses or fund various “affordability” initiatives that’ll earn them the goodwill of voters.

Other progressives want to spend it all on continuing programs that would then have to be funded in later years — years in which the state is already looking at fast-mounting budget shortfalls set to swell to $11 billion in 2029.

Yet the surplus is at best temporary; it should go to plug some non-recurring but urgent need.

Which leads to Heastie’s proposal: Make at least a $1 billion payment toward reducing the state’s $7 billion-plus in arrears to the feds for unemployment benefits paid out during the pandemic, otherwise, he notes, that debt will become an added “burden on small businesses.”  

Better still, devote the whole $3 billion to that.

If Albany doesn’t pay down that debt, the alternative is a sharp boost in Unemployment Insurance payroll taxes — yet another blow to job-creation and another sign that anyone looking to open a new business should look at any other state.

For all our usual differences with him, the speaker makes perfect sense here; Hochul should drop her “checks for everyone” idea and join him in putting this windfall to wise use.