NY’s New Governor Is Just Cuomo 2.0

FOR nearly seven years, Kathy Hochul was a “proud partner” to then Gov. Andrew Cuomo, serving dutifully as his lieutenant. She once proclaimed that he was “truly committed to righting the injustices against women” but never said a word about the 11 sexual-abuse allegations against him. Last summer, Hochul gushed that Cuomo had “set the bar for elected officials to follow,” but she never uttered a word about the 15,000 nursinghome deaths he helped cause, the months-long coverup of the true toll or the corrupt $5.1 million book deal he got in the bargain.

So you might forgive New Yorkers who fear that her ascent to chief executive represents nothing more than Cuomo, Version 2.0. In her first days in office, she has only confirmed those concerns. Consider the evidence:

• Her top aide is married to a partto ner at the a high-powered Albany lobbying firm, Bolton St. John’s, that is extremely close to Team Cuomo.

• Despite her pledge that transparency would be the “hallmark of her administration,” one week after making the vow, she suspended the state’s Open Meetings Law.

• She retained most of Cuomo’s top advisers — including Health Commissioner Howard Zucker, who’s central to the nursing-home scandal.

• She chose as her lieutenant a state senator who helped pass Cuomo’s disastrous bail “reform” and who has called for defunding the police.

• Her order mandating masks in schools even came with standard

Cuomo-esque arrogance: “Get used to it.”

And as was the case with Cuomo the past several years, Hochul seems to think her most important constituency is the far-left progressives in her party.

She called an emergency session to extend the eviction moratorium to temporarily appease the “cancel rent” radicals. But the moratorium has been crushing small landlords — some who haven’t received a rent payment for more than a year and a half yet still have to keep up with tax and mortgage payments. And the ineptitude in dispersing billions in federal aid is mind-boggling.

New York is desperately in need of new thinking and a new direction. The Empire State trails the rest of the country in all the important categories. The only thing we lead in is tax rates, debt, corruption and the out-migration of residents. Cuomo 2.0, even a softer and gentler version, will only extend the painful decline of our once mighty state. We can’t afford it.

New York’s deterioration may have accelerated under Cuomo, but it didn’t start with him, and it won’t end with his resignation, unless transformative change is brought to Albany, bringing in train major reforms. It isn’t going happen with Cuomo’s running mate or anyone tainted with Cuomo’s filthy stain.

What the state needs is an Albany outsider, someone outside the bubble willing to shake things up. Someone less interested in back pats from the insiders, lobbyists and other special interests, and more interested in putting New York back on the path to prosperity for all. Someone who recognizes that the Albany status quo is actively harmful to our great state.

Here’s a little of what that looks like:

• Term limits for all state lawmakers.

• Lower, flatter and fairer tax rates.

• Reduction of debt and wasteful spending.

• Elimination of job-killing regulations and mandates.

• Greater educational choice for all families.

• Repeal of the Cuomo-Hochul administration’s bail and discovery “reforms” that empower evildoers while undermining police and endangering law-abiders.

• Refunding police.

• Strengthening the state ethics administration with true independence

As a two-term Westchester County executive, I enacted a term-limits law, cut property taxes, created more than 44,000 new jobs, reduced crime, grew our population and earned the highest credit rating in the state; the $1.8 billion budget I inherited in 2010 was the same amount I left office with eight years later.

And I did it all with a Democratled Board of Legislators, in a county with three times as many Democrats as Republicans. Sanity and balance need to be restored in this state. And yes, it can be done again in Albany.

‘ She . . . never said a word about the 11 sexual-abuse allegations against him. ’