{"id":139784,"date":"2026-02-20T09:55:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T09:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/139784\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T09:55:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T09:55:23","slug":"hochul-hikes-state-budget-proposal-to-263-billion-following-mamdani-bailout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/139784\/","title":{"rendered":"Hochul hikes state budget proposal to $263 billion following Mamdani bailout"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALBANY \u2013 Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s state budget proposal is already ballooning by another roughly $3 billion,\u00a0as she piles more money into the Big Apple \u2014 even as Mayor\u00a0Zohran Mamdani continues to insist on slapping New Yorkers with new taxes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The new spending, which brings the state budget to an eye-watering $262.7 billion,\u00a0includes $150 million to help financially struggling upstate cities after Hochul announced she would\u00a0pick up the tab for $1.5 billion of New York City\u2019s expenses<\/a>\u00a0earlier this week.<\/p>\n

Republicans were quick to slam Democrat Hochul for failing to rein in the\u00a0state\u2019s runaway spending.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"GovernorThe new budget also includes $1.5B to bailout NYC. ZUMAPRESS.com<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ink is barely dry on her proposed budget, the largest spending plan in state history, and the governor already wants to go higher,\u201d state Sen. Tom O\u2019Mara (R-Chemung), the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, told The Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe governor is eager to deliver over a billion dollars to prop up a socialist agenda in New York City while tossing around peanuts to the rest of the state, especially struggling and overburdened upstate communities,\u201d O\u2019Mara said.<\/p>\n

State Assembly Minority Leader Ed Ra (R-Nassau) said:\u00a0\u201cThe governor\u2019s 30-day amendments send a clear message: there is no effort to rein in spending\u2014only to expand it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMore state spending has not translated into a better quality of life for New Yorkers. It hasn\u2019t delivered safer streets, it hasn\u2019t lowered utility bills, and it hasn\u2019t made everyday life more affordable. We cannot spend our way to prosperity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0newly-minted Buffalo state Sen. Jeremy Zellner (D-Erie) praised Hochul for tossing $40 million to New York\u2019s second-largest city, which is facing a massive $60 million budget gap of its own.<\/p>\n

\u201cI commend Governor Hochul for recognizing the urgency of Buffalo\u2019s fiscal situation and stepping up with this critical $40 million investment,\u201d Zellner wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n

Hochul already committed to spending $2 billion on child care subsidies for New York City \u2013 giving Mamdani a big win on one of his signature policy initiatives \u2013 before throwing the Big Apple the additional $1.5 billion to help cover its fiscal gap.<\/p>\n

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But the Democratic socialist mayor \u2014 who has repeatedly called on Albany to raise taxes on New Yorkers making more than $1 million a year \u2014 ratcheted up the pressure even further this week.<\/p>\n

Mamdani claimed he\u2019d be \u201cforced\u201d to raise city property taxes by $9.5% to close the city\u2019s $5.4 billion budget gap \u2014 unless Hochul and state lawmakers agreed to his \u201ctax the rich\u201d plan.<\/p>\n

Hochul, along with City Council Speaker\u00a0Julie Menin, has so far brushed off Mamdani\u2019s\u00a0property tax tantrum.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t support a property tax increase on New Yorkers and I\u2019m not wavering from my position that I don\u2019t want to drive more people out of our state by increasing taxes from what is already a high-tax state,\u201d Hochul told reporters at an unrelated event in Westchester County yesterday.<\/p>\n

An additional $1 billion in new spending will be coming from the feds, after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services approved an extension of\u00a0a gimmick to extract more federal Medicaid dollars<\/a>\u00a0ostensibly disguised as a tax on healthcare middlemen. The additional funding was slated to go into the state\u2019s Healthcare Stability fund, which is used to funnel cash to hospitals and other medical providers.<\/p>\n

The amended budget also scales back Hochul\u2019s\u00a0extension of pilot programs for autonomous vehicles<\/a>\u00a0outside New York City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALBANY \u2013 Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s state budget proposal is already ballooning by another roughly $3 billion,\u00a0as she piles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[426,57,9,24,55,54,56,4281,58,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-139784","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-kathy-hochul","9":"tag-metro","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-city-news","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-state-budget","16":"tag-us-news","17":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}