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Hochul’s budget standoff hangs on unions’ outrageous $100B pension demand

The push by New York’s public-employee unions to slap taxpayers with over $100 billion in new pension debt may finally be colliding with reality.

Speaking at a budget-focused press conference in Albany Thursday, Gov. Kathy Hochul acknowledged that granting even part of labor’s demands — for full pensions at age 55, lower employee contributions and bigger benefits — would be “a big hit” for taxpayers.

The changes being demanded behind closed doors would, Hochul said, add $1.5 billion per year to state and local taxpayer costs.

Instead, she said, she’s negotiating “much more scaled-down” changes to the rules about what public employees — including teachers, whose unions have been the primary driver of this year’s push — pay into, and get from, the pension system.

The governor, like most Albany pols, has been exceedingly deferential to the state’s public-employee unions.

She’s declined to challenge their bogus claims that New York City’s underfunded pension systems are in good shape, or their narrative that the state’s 2009 and 2012 pension reforms are, somehow, measurably harming recruitment and retention in state government today.

Tom Homan claims Hochul hurting migrants as NY Dems look to shrink local partnerships with ICE:........

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