10 steps Gov. Kathy Hochul should take to get New York moving in the right direction
By Congressman Lee Zeldin
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s reign of terror is finally over, but thus far, there are only dim prospects that New Yorkers will be free from the disastrous policies of the Cuomo-Hochul administration and one-party rule in Albany.
While Cuomo may have been run out of office, his lieutenant, Kathy Hochul, now takes the helm. She has the opportunity to steer New York in the right direction — or keep our state barreling off a cliff. For starters, here are 10 ideas for the Empire State’s new chief executive to implement, if she is at all serious about turning things around:
- Keep qualified immunity to protect police officers from legal harassment for doing their jobs and repeal the cashless bail law that favors criminals over law-abiding citizens and public safety.
- Stop bowing to the far left and the #DefundthePolicemovement, as Hochul did sadly with the selection of state Sen. Brian Benjamin for lieutenant governor.
- Act on transparency, rather than just talk about it, by aggressively advancing the inquiries into the Cuomo-Hochul administration and publicly releasing the findings, including what Hochul herself knew and when. Hochul was either complicit or out to lunch. New Yorkers deserve to know which applies to her awareness of scandal after scandal.
- Immediately fire state Health Commissioner Howard Zucker for his role in the deadly nursing-home order and coverup, the preferential COVID testing for the administration’s family and friends at private residences conducted by state Health Department officials, and moving the samples to the front of the line at the state lab.
- Finally, bring state spending under control and lower the backbreaking tax burden and insane cost of living strangling hardworking New York families, which has pushed many of them to their breaking points, forcing them to flee for states further south.
- Improve the quality of education in our schools by eliminating critical race theory from every classroom, defending advanced academics against woke efforts to abolish them, overhauling the state education-aid formula, lifting the cap on charters, and instituting tax credits for school choice.
- End the nanny-state, freedom-infringing, personal-responsibility-trampling mandates and lockdown policies that demand science to follow politics, instead of the other way around. Individual liberty needs to be protected, not attacked.
- Don’t incentivize able-bodied adults to stay at home instead of re-entering the workforce when there are jobs available to them that desperately need to be filled. Job opportunities are available all over the state, and it’s time for more New Yorkers to get back to work.
- Enact term limits and end the three-people-in-a-room, back-door-dealing budgets that cut out legislators’ voices, the minority party, and some regions of the state, while making good, clean governance impossible. The intent of our Founding Fathers was to channel politicians’ ideas and energy to make a positive difference, and then for those pols to move along and permit others to take their place.
- There are way too many school districts in New York, and they all have their own superintendents and deputy superintendents of math, science, social studies, and so on. Consolidate now and save!
It’s time to save our state. All New Yorkers, regardless of who they voted for, where they live or how much they earn, deserve far better than the status quo and politicians who have failed to learn from the mistakes of the past.
We must end one-party rule in Albany and New York City and restore balance and a government that puts the priorities of everyday New Yorkers first. Voters need to take back control of how we are governed and set the standards we want for those who are given the honor of serving us.
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Lee Zeldin represents New York’s 1st District in the House of Representatives.
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