Hochuls rebate checks hit mailboxes across NY with just days until midterms: Election-year scam

Gov.Kathy Hochul’s utility rebate checks are hitting mailboxes across New York — with just days to go before voters head to the polls to decide whether to re-elect her.The checks have been arriving since September and are still coming, dropping between $100 and $200 in the hands of an estimated 8.2 million households through December.The $1 billion program was factored into the state budget in May, with the Democratic governor billing it as relief from energy costs which have spiked between 27% and 46% under her watch.But her Republican opponent in the November 3 election — Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman — has dismissed the checks as a “big election-year scam.” He previously ripped the sums, which are based on income reported in 2024 tax returns, as “peanuts,” while questioning the difference they’ll make in everyday New Yorkers’ lives.Blakeman isn’t the only critic of rebate checks.On Monday, two of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s top lieutenants dismissed the use of such one-time payments, saying they “disempower” people and fail to address real cost-drivers, AMNY first reported.“One-time handouts disempower people,” Mamdani Chief of Staff Elle Bisgaard-Church said at the New York City Policy Forum.

“Means-tested programs segregate and encumber people.Private sector capture extracts wealth and tilts programs away from public welfare.”That view was echoed by another Mamdani appointee, Economic Development Corporation Board Chair Lina Khan, who argued a system-wide shift was required to help New Yorkers.“This is not as much about one-time checks.

This is not about one-time tax breaks,” Khan said, arguing politicians should be addressing corporate greed as the reason behind skyrocketing costs.“It’s really about how do we address some of the upstream drivers,” said Khan, who served as chair of the Federal Trade Commission under President Joe Biden.The comments from Bisgaard-Church and Khan weren’t about the Hochul check...