Our report “Crooked Kathy’s Dirty Donors”, published in partnership with Center for Popular Democracy, Hedge Clippers, and New York Communities for Change, analyzes millions of dollars in campaign donations to New York Governor Kathy Hochul from billionaires, wealthy charter school backers, real estate developers, and
Wall Street and the financial industry. In her first budget after winning re-election, Hochul has prioritized the interests of these wealthy donors in her budget, including low taxes for billionaires, a massive expansion of charter schools, continued corporate subsidies for real estate and Wall Street, and a failure to fund public goods and public services needed to address the affordability crisis faced by most regular New Yorkers. In our analysis of thousands of donations to Hochul since she became governor, we found Hochul has received at least: - $2,504,913 from 51 billionaires and their spouses;
- $929,636 from 25 charter school
backers;
- $9,113,627 from 394 real estate industry donors; and
- $3,952,588 from 125 financial industry donors.
These millions of dollars in donations give some indication of how Hochul’s “billionaires’ budget” proposal came to be despite the overwhelming popularity of taxing billionaires and wealthy corporations, raising New York’s minimum wage and indexing it to inflation, strengthening local public schools rather than expanding privately operated charter schools, and investing in public goods and services like affordable housing, health care, child care, higher education, public transit, and lower-cost renewable energy. For more on the wealthy donors – including Trump-backing billionaires, cable TV and pro sports tycoons, real estate moguls, and Wall Street hedge fund executives – whose millions of dollars in influence spending have helped Governor Hochul bust campaign fundraising records read “Crooked Kathy’s Dirty Donors” and keep following LittleSis as we continue to report on corporate influence on government in New York and around the US.
|
