Like the Coyote in a Roadrunner cartoon, our Governor has run smack into the walls of reality with Energy Policy and Tax Policy.

Regarding energy policy: Gov. Kathy Hochul was forced to admit that the Net-Zero mandates in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019 (CLCPA) are impossible. Energy experts warned about this for seven years, but for political reasons she chose to ignore the warnings.

But now an election is coming and people are noticing their electric bills.

Using nonsensical climate catastrophe memes as an excuse, our governor and her predecessor deliberately wasted $79 billion of taxpayer money on Wind/Solar/BESS subsidies. NY electricity costs are now 58% higher than the national average, and our electric grid is perilously close to instability and blackouts because Albany prematurely shuttered perfectly good power plants in favor of unreliable Wind/Solar/BESS generation.

After all that spending, we still obtain only 10% of our electricity from Wind/Solar/BESS sources, with no hope of ever meeting Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act Net-Zero mandates. New York could have used that money to upgrade our aging fleet of power plants with newer technology that would have improved reliability and reduced operating costs by increasing efficiency. Instead, we threw that investment away.

Every new Wind/Solar/BESS installation that our local municipalities approve is one more nail in our economic coffin. The momentary ecstasy of PILOT programs for localities will be short-lived, indeed.

Quoting JP Morgan’s 2026 Energy Analysis: “It is increasingly looking like the rush to build solar and storage in the United States may go down as one of the largest misallocations of capital in our nation’s history.”

Consequently our governor is now doing what typical politicians do — kicking the can down the road. Rather than demonstrating leadership and confronting the real problem — the CLCPA legislation and the fraudulent climate justification — she is merely asking the Legislature to postpone current mandates until 2031, after she is comfortably out of office. Such courage!

But doesn’t our governor remember that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that climate catastrophe would end the world by 2030?

Meanwhile Hochul continues to force taxpayers to subsidize Corporate Welfare for Wind/Solar/BESS to satisfy her donor class on Wall Street, even though she is admitting through her recent actions that there is no climate emergency to mitigate.

Our governor then blames her problems on President Donald Trump’s cancellation of federal subsidies. But if Wind and Solar are as cheap as they claim, then why is a subsidy required at all? If Wind/Solar/BESS is such a great investment, then why not fund it with NY revenue so we can all enjoy its low cost and affordability in the future?

Now, after killing nuclear power in NY and destroying a perfectly good nuclear facility that once produced 25% of all NYC power (Indian Point), NYSERDA is trying to hire people for its “Advanced Nuclear Team”. Hochul is now desperate to escape the hole she dug, but offers no “mea culpa” for leading us into the hole.

Energy Policy is not the only wall into which our governor has run. In a Politico broadcast in March, she demonstrated her true character by shaming former New Yorkers for having fled the state to escape her punishing taxes and destructive social policies.

Back in 2022, Hochul openly sneered at all those who opposed her big-government high-tax policies, telling them to “take the bus to Florida or Texas”; “we don’t want you in New York”.

Now she is groveling for those people to come back, saying “I need people who are high-net worth to support the generous social programs that we want to have in our state.” She begs them to “cut me a check, just like patriotic millionaires should.”

But, who said that wasting tax money on welfare is patriotic? Who said the working people of New York actually want the economic drag of “generous welfare programs”? Generous welfare is the primary reason that New York is in fiscal trouble. Apparently, working people are supposed to be thrilled to live as serfs supporting Hochul’s government-run plantation.

Sorry governor, but the laws of economics dictate that we can have a generous welfare system – or we can have a healthy economy — but we cannot have both at the same time.

Does our governor not yet understand why productive people and businesses leave New York?

Hint: It’s not the weather.

Michael Dee is a Silver Creek resident and Scott Axelson lives in Jamestown.