Will Kathy Hochul’s massive political ineptitude save congestion pricing?
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On the merits, unless you’re on the political right or an obscenely self-interested liberal-unless-it-affects-me-personally-in-any-way suburbanite, congestion pricing is easy on the policy merits. In a vacuum, the politics are trickier — even if a majority of voters will come to appreciate the benefit, in the short term they’re more likely to focus on the tax increase, and it’s a classic case where the benefits are more diffuse than the burden.
One thing Hochul seems to have miscalculated, however, is that the politics of the congestion tax are not in a vacuum. Huge amounts of funding for the MTA — the mass transit service that the vast majority of non-rich New Yorkers use to commute and that allows New York City to be New York City — are at stake. So either the transit system will be destroyed, or there is going to have to be some other new tax, only this tax is going to be borne exclusively by New Yorkers while allowing Connecticut and New Jersey car commuters to free ride.
Claims that congestion pricing will be bad for the post-pandemic Manhattan have no answer to the obvious response that an alternative tax will be worse.
1) There’s no popular way to raise taxes, including congestion tolls
2) Congestion pricing is at least a revenue source that makes sense on the merits
3) New Yorkers should be asking harder questions about where all their existing tax revenue is going https://t.co/MwPHR6tBNu— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 7, 2024
And since Hochul had no serious alternative plan she’s proposing to allow Republicans to fill in the blanks of what the tax increase will be:
So Hochul traded a fee that most New Yorkers weren’t going to pay, implemented before the election, for a Sword of Damocles tax threat that every R can run on?
One day, when President Mike Lawler looks back on this week… https://t.co/MfK83JrqbI— David Weigel (@daveweigel) June 7, 2024
Heckuva job! And since Albany so far has wisely decided not to bail her out of her abject cowardice, stupidity, and reactionary political instincts, the MTA board now has the opportunity to tell her to eat shit:
It’s now 100% official: our calls worked! the legislature is not bailing Hochul out.
Hochul is quickly running out of options. The MTA board will soon have no choice but to overrule her and implement congestion pricing or face financial ruin. https://t.co/mUUMduu03M— sam (@sam_d_1995) June 7, 2024
I’m less confident that they will, but they certainly should. Progressives can at least be grateful that Hochul misplaying her hand has opened up an opportunity. The legislature at least should stand up to her just like they did to her awful judicial nomination.
"We’re debasing ourselves as a legislative body to provide cover to a clueless governor," one source in the Assembly told @HellGateNY. "Congestion pricing is a law & you can’t just ignore it because a poll made you nervous. What are we even doing here?" https://t.co/Nd2Rv5ni3Z— Nick Pinto (@macfathom) June 7, 2024
…Hochul: the congestion pricing plan must be killed because of the imaginary New Jersey residents who come into midtown Manhattan to go pay more for the same diner food they could get there and can’t figure out how to get to East 45 street without driving:
New Jerseyans love their diners, none of them are driving the entire width of Manhattan to go to one when they have plenty of their own https://t.co/pyoscgtiGv— Rebecca C. Lewis (@_rebeccaclewis) June 7, 2024
In addition to her frequently terrible politics Hochul is just a total dumbshit.