Hochuls record-high $260B NYS budget proposal includes no tax hike for now

ALBANY – Gov.Kathy Hochul won’t rely on an income tax hike to balance her record-high $260 billion state budget proposal that will be unveiled Tuesday, The Post has learned.Hochul’s budget proposal for the 2026-2027 fiscal year will blast past last year’s $252 billion executive proposal and set the stage for weeks of fights with a Democrat-dominated state legislature that has consistently pushed taxing the rich for the last several years, according to preliminary figures.

“Our revenue projections in the current year, thanks to the strength of Wall Street and a progressive tax code, have really provided an outsize level of returns to make the investments, particularly in child care,” Hochul’s budget director, Blake Washington, told The Post ahead of the anticipated release of the plan.A progressive push toward universal childcare – in large part led by Democratic socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani – is a big driver in the budget’s ballooning spending.Hochul has promised $4.5 billion toward expanding childcare programs statewide – a $1.7 billion increase from the current state budget.That will include launching a new “2-Care” program for all 2-year-olds in the Big Apple and $210 million to expand pre-K for 4-year-olds statewide.But while Hochul’s proposal helps fulfill a key promise by her newfound ally Mamdani, the governor has pointedly rejected calls to fund it by taxing the rich.“She thinks it’s a last resort to raise taxes on anybody at any time,” Washington noted.The budget will not increase income taxes, though it will extend the top corporate franchise tax rate of 7.25% that was originally implemented under former Gov.

Andrew Cuomo in 2021 and renewed under Hochul in 2023.Mamdani, for his part, is now pushing the state to hike taxes on high-income earners to fund his freebie-filled agenda including the childcare program.Fiscal watchdogs have warned the city faces combined deficits of $12 billion in the next two f...