Gov. Kathy Hochul had good news when she stepped to the microphone at the Boys & Girls Club of Rochester: state checks for up to $200 will soon land in New Yorkers' mailboxes to soften the blow of rising utility bills.
Hochul had secured $1 billion for "energy rebates" in this year's state budget and the distribution was set to start on Sept. 21. For the Democratic governor, who has made "affordability" her mantra, the checks heading to 8.1 million households were the state's latest successful effort to "put money back in New Yorkers' pockets."
"Every dollar counts, and I know that," she told the Rochester audience on Sept. 14. "So my job as Governor is to continue to find ways to make your lives a little bit easier."
A volley of scorn came the
next day from Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the Republican challenging Hochul in the Nov. 3 election. He held his own own event outside a bakery in Queens to blast what he described as a campaign-season ploy that will do little to lessen people's financial pain.
Counting off hundred-dollar bills to make his point, Blakeman called the rebate checks "peanuts" in comparison to what New Yorkers are paying for electricity and gas after repeated rate hikes, which he blames on Hochul. Blakeman, who has made utility bills a central piece of his own "affordability" message, said New Yorkers are paying 70% more for electricity than the national average.
"And what is she giving us?" he demanded, reaching for a jar of Planters as a new prop. "Peanuts. Peanuts. We get back peanuts. We give her thousands of dollars, and this is what we get back: peanuts."
Hochul's campaign seized on Blakeman's response as a damaging declaration that he opposes sending New Yorkers up to $200. Ryan Radulovacki, her campaign spokesman, sent out a statement saying, “As New Yorkers deal with Donald Trump’s record-high gas prices, Governor Hochul is getting $1 billion in energy rebate checks to New York families, but ‘100% MAGA’ Bruce Blakeman opposes every dollar Governor Hochul puts back in your pocket."
The campaign also mocked Blakeman for admitting in a radio interview that he'll cash his own rebate check.
The checks will be mailed from Sept. 21 through December. Individuals earning less than $150,000 will get $100. Couples who file joint tax returns and earn less than $150,000 will get $200; those with incomes of $150,000-$300,000 will get $150.
Pro-Blakeman PAC puts billboards at NY's exits
Drivers passing from Rockland County into New Jersey on Interstate 287 are now greeted by a billboard with a political barb that plays off a familiar highway message at state borders.
"You are now leaving New York (like everyone else)," the sign reads. "Vote Bruce Blakeman."
A pro-Blakeman political fund called Safe and Strong New York has bought 13 billboards in all around the state with that message. Many are in spots where drivers are truly leaving New York, such as at a bridge from Staten Island to New Jersey and on roads leading into Massachusetts and Vermont. Others were placed away from the state's borders in places like Rochester, Albany and Brooklyn.
The initial cost is $250,000, and the fund must spend more to keep the billboards up through the Nov. 3 election, a spokesman for Safe and Strong New York told the USA TODAY Network.
The jab Blakeman and his supporters are throwing with the billboards is that New Yorkers are moving to states with lower taxes and living costs.
Several big donors had poured $2.3 million into Safe and Strong New York through Aug. 4, according to state campaign finance records. The contributions include $1 million in total from Madison Square Garden bigwig James Dolan and another political committee he supported; $500,000 from Trilogy Advisors in New York City; $500,000 from Caryl Ratner.
Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA TODAY Network. Reach him at CMcKenna@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Hochul, Blakeman clash over energy rebate checks in NY governor's race
