For Hochul, rushing through $1B in stadium money for Bills owners was just the beginning

Back in the spring, as the New York state legislative session was winding down, Gov. Kathy Hochul inserted a last-second addition into the proceedings. The new legislation would funnel an unprecedented torrent of tax dollars to a preferred industry in her upstate home base, with no time allowed for even a single hearing, let alone significant public debate.

If you think you know where this story is going — Hochul’s $1 billion public subsidy for a new Buffalo Bills stadium that was passed in April — you haven’t read enough surprise twist ledes. The last-second bill addressed above was an entirely different spending plan that Hochul pushed through in early June, one that, as the New York Times reported on Monday, is likely to end up costing New York taxpayers many times more than the football stadium:

Gov. Kathy Hochul was asking them to fast-track legislation authorizing billions of dollars in corporate subsidies to lure semiconductor plants to New York, according to the message from Democratic leaders in the State Senate.

The chip subsidy bill, which would designate $10 billion in state tax breaks over 20 years for microchip makers, was passed by the Senate on its last scheduled day after Ms. Hochul invoked emergency procedures, known as a “message of necessity.” The Assembly quickly followed suit.

The chip plant subsidy bill isn’t exactly ten times as expensive as the stadium bill, as the Times asserts — its $10 billion will be spread out over the next two decades, while the Bills’ billion is in present-value dollars. Though as state Sen. Liz Krueger, who voted against the chip bill, noted to the Times, matching subsidies from counties could end up making it a $20 billion subsidy, which even if part of it is in 2041 dollars is starting to get into some real money. In exchange, Hochul promised that the chip plants would create jobs — though according to the actual legislation, each plant must promise to create only 500 net new jobs to be eligible for tax breaks.

The money is being provided through the state’s Excelsior Jobs Program, the same program that was going to be the centerpiece of then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s multi-billion-dollar lure for Amazon to build a headquarters in New York City before that deal imploded under public opposition. Excelsior — Cuomo just loved naming things this — effectively underwrites up to 7.5% of a company’s payroll with state dollars, though at least this means that if the jobs evaporate, so do the tax breaks.

That this money is being allocated for semiconductor plants is appropriate, or maybe “ironic” is the better term, since computer chip factories were one of the first industries to be targeted by large-scale state and local subsidies after these first really took off in the 1980s, in part of the wave that soon after spread to the sports world. This has seldom worked out well, in part because computer chip plants are even more footloose than NFL teams, with factories constantly closing, being bought, moving offshore, and so on. Under Excelsior, if a plant closes, at least it doesn’t get any more tax breaks, but it does get to keep the old ones it collected, while any jobs for New York residents end up being transitory.

The even more ironic aspect to all this — or maybe “hypocritical” is the better term — is that Hochul came to office promising to bring a new era of transparency to state government, then immediately set about replicating the bad old days of behind-closed-doors legislating. From that Times piece again:

Ms. Hochul had [promised] “a new era of transparency.” She said that the “days of three men in a room” — shorthand for the star-chamber-like decision-making in Albany — were over. There would be “accountability and no tolerance for individuals who cross the line,” she said…

“Given the pronouncements that Hochul made when she took over, about these profound changes in transparency and ethics in Albany, it’s very hard to see her being sincere about any of that,” said John Kaehny, executive director of the watchdog group Reinvent Albany. “It’s a different kind of politics, but it’s still the exact same result, which is the governor is working for extremely powerful interest groups that are the same ones that were prevailing under Cuomo.”

All this is some excellent reporting by the Times, and should help New York voters decide which policies they want to support when they go to cast ballots in the Democratic primary — sorry, what’s that, the primary was last month, and Hochul already won in a landslide? Oh, well, at least voters will have a clear choice in the general election between Hochul and this guy who supports “the reduction of corporate taxes and the elimination of harmful, job killing red tape and regulations” and, uh, yeah. Maybe voting harder isn’t the solution after all.