Coming out of the holiday season, Governor Kathy Hochul revealed the first of her topics to be covered in her upcoming State of the State address, while the Republican looking to unseat her in November discussed taxes on tips, claiming the incumbent is copying an already existing GOP idea.
Hochul appeared at Hamburg High School to introduce the first of her set of proposals to be detailed later this month. The topic, child and teen mental health, and separating them from the electronic sources which threaten it, including social media and Chatbot AI companions.
The state has already imposed a ban on cell phone use by minors during school hours. The governor says it’s working to reverse alarming trends she learned more about while talking to educators, parents, and students.
“What I learned was that young people were not making friends in person. They were not talking to each other during lunch or recess in the hallways, the hallways and cafes were silent. That is so unnatural,” she said.
Hochul adds that many online sources were luring kids down a dangerous path, toward online predators, even toward self-harm. Her proposals to be formally introduced later this month include expanded age verification, disabling AI Chatbot features for minors, setting parental controls for any online financial transactions, and mandating highest privacy settings be placed on covered platforms by default.
The moves, Hochul suggests, will help parents overcome the challenge of trying to keep up with all their kids’ accounts, and hope that any adjustments made are kept in place.
“Under our proposals, we're removing that burden from parents and placing the responsibility where it belongs, on the shoulders of the app companies and the platforms themselves,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Republican candidate for governor was inside a Town of Tonawanda restaurant, accusing the incumbent of embracing an idea that the GOP already proposed a year ago.
Speaking on the campaign trail at Tonawanda’s Olympic Diner Monday, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman pointed out a Republican-backed proposal to abolish state taxes on tips is in a bill that’s been lingering in the state legislature for almost a year.
“The governor could have insisted [the bill] be passed this last legislative session, which would have eliminated taxes on tips,” Blakeman said Monday.
Part of Hochul’s push to improve affordability includes a proposal to eliminate state taxes on tips up to $25,000 as part of her upcoming executive budget. The change aligns with federal measures to do the same, according to a Jan 1. press release from Hochul’s office announcing the move.
Blakeman claimed Hochul only proposed the idea once his campaign started talking about it.
“I guess she thinks we're good leaders, because she's following what we said,” he joked.
But Hochul’s office said this is the first opportunity the governor has to introduce legislation for the upcoming fiscal year, and the timing is only connected to changes made by the federal government. The elimination of taxes on tips at the federal-level was signed into law on July 4 as part of President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” -- almost two months after the current state budget was signed into law on May 9 and around a month after the state’s last legislative session ended in June. The upcoming legislative session begins Jan. 7.
Blakeman also attacked his opponent on the topic of affordability by calling New York the most overtaxed state in the union.
“People who I meet when I travel around here in Western New York and throughout the whole state, for that matter, people are very unhappy. They're miserable, as a matter of fact, with Kathy Hochul’s leadership,” he said. “Businesses have left the state. Hundreds of thousands of people have left the state.”
Blakeman appeared Sunday at Highmark Stadium for the Buffalo Bills’ final game of the regular season, and the pro football team’s last in that venue. He said Monday that many people don’t know of his past experience in business, which brought him to Western New York several times before. He noted that his appearance Sunday was not his first at a Bills game.
BTPM asked him, when was the last time he was in Western New York? After spending a few moments trying to recall, he was reminded by his campaign team that he did appear last year to accept an award from the Erie County Republican Committee. The committee’s chair, Michael Kracker, is involved with running Blakeman’s campaign as he tries to gain more familiarity with Western New York voters.
Hochul, meanwhile, noted her appearance at Hamburg High School was a sentimental homecoming.
“It was 50 years ago that I walked across the stage and graduated from Hamburg High School. I have been a lifelong Bulldog ever since then,” she said. “So often, the memories of what I learned here, and the people who touched my life and the values that I learned as a student here, have really helped me get through some of the challenges I've seen. As I've moved from public life, from a town board member just down the road, to the county clerk, member of Congress, Lieutenant Governor, and now the governor. But I've never lost sight of where I come from and the people who had such an influence on my life.”
Hochul’s current lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, is also challenging the incumbent, in the Democratic primary.
