New York Governor Kathy Hochul has unveiled a sweeping plan to provide free childcare for every two-year-old in New York City while expanding pre-K and early childhood programs across the state, insisting it can be done without raising taxes, at least in the near term.
According to The Post Millennial, Hochul announced the initiative on Thursday alongside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a progressive who has made expansive government giveaways central to his political brand. New York already operates universal pre-K and 3K programs, but Hochul said she intends to partner with Mamdani to extend those services to all two-year-olds in the city, promising that the free childcare for 2-year-olds in the Big Apple will be fully funded.
Mamdani, who built his mayoral campaign around universal and free childcare, has also floated a series of other taxpayer-backed benefits, even pledging that the city would provide World Cup tickets to all New Yorkers. In addition to helping Mamdani install the new childcare program, Hochul will assist him in trying to stabilize and expand the citys 3K program in pursuit of what critics describe as a socialist vision of cradle-to-classroom government care.
State officials say the funding for the two-year-old childcare expansion will come from Albany, but will rely on existing revenue streams rather than new levies. Hochuls office has emphasized that there will be no additional tax increase to fund the program, at least for 2026, a timeline that conveniently extends just past the next budget cycle.
The political stakes are obvious for Hochul, who faces reelection in the fall and must appeal to voters beyond the deep-blue confines of New York City. Any move to hike taxes statewide to underwrite New York Citys ambitious welfare-style programs could prove toxic in suburban and upstate regions already burdened by some of the highest taxes in the nation.
Mamdani, by contrast, has openly embraced massive tax hikes, promising to raise $9 billion from millionaires and corporations to bankroll free initiatives such as universal childcare. His agenda underscores a growing divide in Democratic politics between those pushing ever-larger government entitlements and those, like Hochul, who publicly deny the need for tax increases even as they expand costly programs that will ultimately fall on taxpayers to sustain.
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