Thanks for the $300, Kathy – You Absolute Legend!

Nothing says “I feel your pain” like a government employee stuffing my mailbox with an envelope that screams: “INFLATION REFUND – FROM THE DESK OF GOVERNOR KATHY.”

Wow, Kathy, you really get me. You saw grocery prices go berserk, gas hit five bucks, and thought, “You know what’ll fix this? I’ll mail every sucker on the voter rolls a crisp check for three hundred bucks… right before the election.” Genius. Pure 4D chess. I’m sure the single mom in Buffalo is gonna frame that check next to her kids’ photos instead of, y’know, buying actual food with it.

If I were still drinking the blue Kool-Aid, I’d be weeping with gratitude right now: “She cares! She really cares!” But since I ditched the partisan jersey years ago, my reaction is a little different:

Lady, you’re literally mailing me back a microscopic crumb of the money you already confiscated from me at gunpoint (well, IRS-point). That’s not compassion, that’s the world’s most pathetic bribe. Three hundred dollars won’t even cover a week of groceries or gas for our family in your glorious Empire State, but hey, at least it photographs well for your campaign ads.

And can we talk about the phrase these selfless public servants love to death? “Cost of living.” They weaponize it every election cycle: “Evil corporations! Greedy billionaires! Orange Man bad!” Funny… I’ve never once heard any of them utter the far more relevant phrase: Cost of Government.

So I asked a spicy AI what that number actually looks like in New York. Buckle up, Queen Kathy:

• Median family-of-4 income in NY, 2025: $134,443
• Total tax burden (federal + state + local + payroll + property + sales): $48,000 
• That’s 35.7% of every dollar earned – gone before you even see it.

Translation: From January 1 to May 8, 2025, every single working day belongs to you and your buddies in Albany and D.C. New Yorkers don’t start working for themselves and their kids until the second week of May. That’s 93 working days of pure servitude. How’s that for “progressive”?

Compare your take to the peasants’ actual bills:

• Housing (mortgage/rent + utilities): $30,700 → 23% 
• Food: $17,500 → 13% 
• Insurance (all of it): $15,800 → 12% 
• Transportation (excluding your auto insurance tax): $9,000 → 7%

Congratulations, Kathy – government is officially the single biggest expense in every New York family’s life. You beat housing and groceries ... combined! You take more money from us than we use on two of the essentials for human survival: food and shelter! That’s not a résumé line, that’s a crime.

So yeah, keep screeching about the “cost of living” while you mail out those adorable little vote-buying coupons. Meanwhile, the real cost crushing New Yorkers wears a pantsuit and lives in the Executive Mansion.

If you actually gave a damn, you’d spend five minutes trying to shrink the Cost of Government instead of cosplaying Robin Hood with my money.

But nah. Easier to just send the serfs a postcard and a participation trophy.

Stay classy, Kath.

— A less than enthusiastic Joe New Yawker