Governor Kathy Hochul stood at a podium this week and thanked supporters for helping push New York's congestion pricing "over the line." Then she made the purpose of the program crystal clear: "We will continue to stand up to the Trump administration and say that ain't going anywhere, Mr. President. We are keeping our congestion pricing!"
Not "we're keeping it because it's working." Not "we're keeping it because New Yorkers love it." We're keeping it because it annoys the president.
Townhall's Amy Curtis flagged the clip, which came via RNC Research on July 8, and the reaction from actual New Yorkers — the ones writing the checks — was immediate. A user posting as GayRepublicanDad laid out what the policy looks like at street level: "Every time I pick my daughter up at soccer I have to pay the tax for the luxury of going home. When I visit relatives in Queens, I pay just to go home. She screwed all of us."
He's not exaggerating. Congestion pricing doesn't just hit Manhattan commuters from the suburbs. It hits residents who live inside the zone. Drive your own car in your own neighborhood — that's a taxable event now. Another New Yorker named Lisa put it more simply: "Imagine being taxed for driving your vehicle in your own neighborhood."
Hochul's full remarks leaned even harder into the framing. "You are an important part of us getting congestion pricing over the line," she told the crowd. "Cause it's 27 million fewer cars on the roads in our city!" That 27 million figure is doing a lot of heavy lifting, and she offered no timeframe or methodology to back it up. Just a big number and a bigger smile.
Meanwhile, the roads those cars have supposedly been cleared from feed into a transit system where New Yorkers are routinely assaulted, stabbed, pushed onto train tracks, and set on fire. The governor's priority isn't making the subway safe enough that people actually want to ride it. The priority is making driving expensive enough that they have no choice.
The Staten Island Young Republican Club responded with the question Hochul apparently never considered: "So because of a political spat with the President, you celebrate and cheer taxing your constituents, who go to work in your city, and state, to make a living, and provide for their families?"
Another commenter, Moshe Hill, pointed out that Hochul has appeared in more photo ops with Zohran Mamdani in six months than she did with Eric Adams in four years. That's a revealing data point. The governor is spending her political capital cozying up to a Democratic Socialist while taxing working families for the privilege of driving home.
This is the same party that, during the 2024 campaign, attacked President Trump's proposal to eliminate taxes on tips — right up until Kamala Harris quietly adopted the same idea and pretended she thought of it first. The pattern is consistent: oppose whatever Trump supports, support whatever Trump opposes, and figure out the policy justification later.
Hochul didn't say congestion pricing reduces emissions. She didn't say it funds infrastructure. She didn't cite ridership gains or air quality improvements. She said it sticks it to Trump.
When the stated purpose of a tax is to win a political argument, the people paying it aren't constituents. They're props.