NY Gov. Kathy Hochul’s planned ‘rebate checks’ hit roadblock as critics want cash spent elsewhere

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan to send checks to middle income New Yorkers is getting pushback from her own party — as state lawmakers say there are better ways to spend the dough.

Hochul wants to send $300 checks to single New Yorkers making under $150,000 a year and families making under $300,000 but some Democrats are scoffing at the eye-watering $3 billion price tag — particularly a year before the governor is up for re-election.

“The checks address a symptom of the problem rather than the problem itself,” state Sen. James Skoufis (D-Orange) told The Post. “We need to address the fundamental issues that drive the high cost of living in New York – these checks fail to do that.”

Assembly Democrats discussed the plan during a closed-door conference meeting this week first reported by POLITCO, with many expressing reservations.

Epstein suggested the money could be used for pre-k and afterschool programs, while Skoufis floated doubling the school tax relief credit, or STAR.

An unusual amount of Dems were reluctant to speak on the proposal at length.

“Everybody likes a check,” Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes told The Post, declining to comment further.

One senator simply sent The Post a shrug emoji when asked if they thought the checks are a good way to spend $3 billion.

“I think people generally don’t mind getting money in the mail and I don’t think my constituents are going to object to it,” Assemblyman David Weprin (D-Queens) told The Post.

Weprin says policymakers are limited because the $3 billion the governor wants to spend is one-time funding, and likely wouldn’t be a recurring expenditure moving forward.

“I think everything’s on the table,” Weprin said, when asked if he’d entertain other ideas.

Others, including Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) have floated other one-time uses like paying off the more than $6 billion New York owes to the federal government for pandemic-era unemployment insurance.