{"id":787883,"date":"2026-05-11T03:05:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T03:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/787883\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T03:05:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T03:05:20","slug":"hey-gov-hochul-how-about-not-betraying-ny-taxpayers-at-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/787883\/","title":{"rendered":"Hey, Gov. Hochul \u2014 how about not betraying NY taxpayers at all?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As state budget negotiations <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/05\/07\/us-news\/hochul-set-to-announce-deal-on-nys-budget-with-a-little-more-help-for-mamdani-nyc\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">enter the final lap<\/a>, Gov. Kathy Hochul is belatedly saying that public-employee unions shouldn\u2019t get all their utterly outrageous pension-giveaway demands. Yay?<\/p>\n<p>The unions call it \u201cFix Tier 6,\u201d but it amounts to undoing the Tier 6 reforms passed over a decade ago \u2014 granting retroactive benefits to employees who took their jobs knowing what the pension plan was \u2014 at a cost of $100 billion to future state and local taxpayers.<\/p>\n<p>The existing benefits beat almost anything in the private sector; why lower the retirement age from 62 to 55?<\/p>\n<p>Why eliminate the (small) amount that workers need to pay in toward their pensions? <\/p>\n<p>Team Hochul pegs the full cost of the union wish list at $1.5 billion a year, while her counteroffer (such as a retirement age of 60) would only <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/05\/08\/us-news\/hochul-proposes-500m-pension-sweetener-as-she-battles-unions-in-budget-stand-off\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">slam taxpayers for $500 million annually<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Oops: We guess the unions should\u2019ve just asked for $5 billion, then she\u2019d have offered \u201cjust\u201d $2 billion.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPost Editorial Board<\/p>\n<p>Mind you, whatever the unions get now, they\u2019ll simply be trying for more next year: The only way to avoid them rolling back the reform completely is to never give an inch.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>This is why New York had to do a \u201cTier 6\u201d: Over the last half-century, the unions have eviscerated the Tier 2, 3, 4 and 5 reforms: They never relent, and eventually Albany hands out the candy.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, this endless cycle of scams shows why the Empire State should move all public pensions from 19th-century \u201cdefined benefit\u201d plans to modern, 401(k)-style \u201cdefined contribution\u201d ones \u2014 which is all that most taxpayers have.<\/p>\n<p>That should be Hochul\u2019s counter-offer, not a scheme to \u201conly\u201d partially betray the people of New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As state budget negotiations enter the final lap, Gov. Kathy Hochul is belatedly saying that public-employee unions shouldn\u2019t&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":787884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,4691,5371,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,1269,8707,4573,39749,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-787883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-editorial","10":"tag-kathy-hochul","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-opinion","18":"tag-pensions","19":"tag-state-budget","20":"tag-unions","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116553732962834659","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}