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History credits Abraham Lincoln with saying “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
Kathy Hochul obviously agrees, so she has settled for trying to fool some of the people all the time.
Nearly two years before she stands for re-election, New York’s Democratic governor is already running hard.
To judge from her press releases, social media and public comments, Hochul wants voters to believe she will keep them safe from both crime and poverty.
To underscore her pitch, she uses variations of her favorite catchphrases repeatedly: “I promised to put money in your pockets,” she says over and over.
And this one: “Public safety is my top priority and I will do everything in my power to keep New Yorkers safe.”
NY on wrong path
They are the right goals — but the mystery is why Hochul won’t honestly fight to achieve them.
Talking is easy, but why not actually do something to make them happen?
In fact, under her tenure, New York is going backward.
It is constantly taking more and more money out of people’s pockets.
And far from feeling safe, most New Yorkers worry every day about sky-high crime and violence, especially on the subways.
The big picture is that the state continues to fall further behind successful, dynamic states in both the cost and quality of life.
It turns out that being America’s tax capital and treating perps and raving maniacs with kid gloves is not a formula for keeping residents happy.
Who would have guessed?
In some ways, the current crisis recalls Hochul’s brush with political death in her 2022 campaign.
She acted as if crime wasn’t a big deal then, letting GOP opponent Lee Zeldin pound away on the topic day after day.
Although Hochul ultimately prevailed, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi scolded her for ignoring the crime problem, saying it helped the GOP flip enough seats in New York to turn the House red.
It emerged later that Hochul had relied on the advice of a political aide who lived full-time in Colorado and who told her to downplay crime and focus on abortion.
The aide was dispatched after it turned out he was repeatedly accused of being a bully, which made him a perfect scapegoat for her dismal performance.
But Hochul is still not forcefully attacking the two issues driving people out of the city and state, so unless she can find someone else to blame, a second failure will be all hers.
Enabling Albany
The core problem is that the astronomical taxes and fees needed to support Albany’s reckless spending inevitably push the cost of living higher and higher.
Yet while Hochul belatedly bemoans the situation, she adds more and more costs to both families and private businesses.
New fees on landlords and employers took effect last week and Hochul personally led the way for the destructive congestion tax in Manhattan that started Sunday.
She also pulled a bait-and-switch by pausing the tax in June just weeks before it was to begin.
Her decision came after meeting with Pelosi’s successor as Dem leader, Brooklyn Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.
Clearly, the pause was a political ploy designed to protect the party’s suburban candidates and avoid a repeat of the GOP gains in 2022.
Soon after the November results were in, Hochul rolled out a new scheme that imposed a $9 daily tax on cars, telling insiders she wanted to do it before Donald Trump became president and stopped it.
Because the fee initially was set at $15, she claimed she had achieved a 40% reduction that would save motorists $1,500 a year.
By her wacky math, that counts as putting money in your pocket.
Such are the privileges available only in a one-party state.
If Republicans were truly competitive and even close to a majority in either chamber in Albany, Hochul wouldn’t have the nerve to make such silly claims.
Her maneuver captures how New York is simultaneously addicted to out-of-control spending and dishonesty.
The state budget, at $237 billion, has increased by $100 billion in a decade, but it’s never enough.
And that doesn’t include a slew of “independent” agencies, such as the MTA, which has a $20 billion budget of its own.
As for public safety, Hochul has presided during an era marked by crimes being committed over and over by repeat offenders.
Although the progressive legislative leaders and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo are largely to blame, Hochul has chosen to meekly surrender rather than waging a public fight.
The result is that the governor’s office has been reduced to little more than a rubber stamp for radical lawmakers.
Stores and pharmacies are closing because shoplifting is out of control, and the subways are, by most measures, more dangerous than ever.
Criminal penalties and mental health laws are woefully insufficient, even as Hochul urges more people to ride the system.
Why should they?
Her choice to lead the MTA, Janno Lieber, downplays crime as if it’s a minor problem and twists the knife by celebrating the congestion tax.
He doesn’t have one tin ear — he has two.
Her warped reality
Again, Hochul has to know all this.
Because she once worked for the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, she must remember his warning that “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”
But Hochul seems satisfied to blather on and on with her stale slogans rather than take the risk of fighting for things that would bring better results.
Even on such outrages as the continual marches in the city by antisemites waving Hamas flags and calling for the elimination of Israel, she is silent.
Where’s the leadership?
The only reasonable conclusion is that Hochul doesn’t have a clue or the backbone required to fix New York.
And that she aims to keep the job by trying to fool most of the people all of the time.
Times not a-changin’
It’s a new year, but it’s the same old New York Times, as reflected in two recent opinion pieces.
The first declares that “The Next Assault on the Modern State Has Begun,” with a subhead claiming “Trump aims to dismantle institutions that keep Americans safe.”
The headline on the second piece insists that “America Needs More Jimmy Carters.”
Doesn’t the Gray Lady ever get tired of being wrong?
U. betcha, Biden
Reader J. David Kelsey asks a good question: “When will anyone dig into the sleazy Penn Biden Center, which China funded to the tune of $68 million through donations? Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and many other Joe Biden associates were paid handsomely for four years, then the president of UPenn gets nominated to be our ambassador to Germany.”