Bruce Blakeman says he’ll bring down utility bills

Bruce Blakeman, the Republican nominee for governor, says he cares about Social Security. After all – he collects it. The 71-year-old Nassau County executive is hoping to unseat Gov. Kathy Hochul in the November election, and affordability is at the top of his mind.

Blakeman spoke with City & State’s Jeff Coltin, in partnership with AARP New York, about his pitch to voters, why New York is too expensive and why he supports fracking. We also interviewed Hochul, which you can read here. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What do you think is the top issue for voters over 50 in New York this year?

Well, I think it’s the same issue for everybody, and that’s affordability. The fact of the matter is, we’re the most overtaxed state in the United States of America. Our electric bills are 70% higher than the national average. People are choking. And we are last in economic outlook. We are No. 50 out of 50 states.

People are losing their jobs because there are corporations that are moving to Texas and Florida and South Carolina and North Carolina. We’re losing people. We’re losing business. And people want to live in safe communities where they have an opportunity to get a better job with better benefits, and they want to keep their money. They don’t want to pay it to taxes, and they don’t want to pay utility bills that are incredibly excessive compared to the rest of the country. And it’s because of Kathy Hochul’s green energy scam and her policies and her 48 utility rate hikes that have made it less affordable to live in New York state.

We’ll definitely give you a chance to follow up on the utilities in a second. But I wanted to start by asking about Social Security. This is a program that voters expect that the promise will be kept. Congress has a lot of tools to fix it. If elected, how would you work to protect Social Security for New Yorkers, for New Yorkers’ children and our grandchildren?

Social Security is a federal issue; it’s not a state issue. So I have virtually no jurisdiction or control over that, other than to say that I’m very interested in Social Security because I now collect it. I’m at that age where I collect it. So the integrity of the Social Security system is very important to me. But I think you have to look at what people do and what they say, and filter that out. The people who are going to protect our Social Security are the same people who are going to protect us from excessive taxes and excessive utility bills. So I believe that the Republican Party and the members of Congress who are in the Republican Party are more situated and better prepared to tackle the Social Security issues and make sure that we have Social Security, that the program is intact, and keep the integrity of the program, and not lower the benefits, but increase the benefits and enhance the benefits of Social Security.

The state does have a little more say over Medicaid and Medicare. Congress and the Trump administration are trying to reduce that spending, hoping for savings on the federal level and enacting a work requirement and ending subsidies for states like New York. How do you think that will affect New Yorkers, and how would you respond as governor?

People are not getting the quality services that they deserve here in New York state. The federal government funds Medicaid in part, with the state and with the county governments. We’re one of the few states where the counties have to contribute, so that’s why property taxes are so high. I think we should get away from that. But when you look at the administration of Medicaid under Kathy Hochul, our Medicaid spending is more than Texas and Florida combined, and that’s unbelievable. So you have to ask yourself, why is that so? Are they less healthy in Texas and Florida? And I think we all know the answer to that. The fact of the matter is, there’s fraud, waste, and abuse, and we need to make sure that we enhance the services and provide more quality services for those who need Medicaid. That’s not happening. The services are going down, the costs going up and the taxpayers are having to pay the brunt of it.

Nearly 4 million New Yorkers care for a family member or another loved one. The average unpaid family caretaker spends 27 hours a week caring for a loved one. They’re providing $58 billion worth of care and spending an average of more than $7,000 a year out of their own pockets. So, given that level of a crisis, how would you help family caregivers here in New York save money and time so that they can continue caring for their loved ones?

First of all, I would diversify the services that are provided by those who are caregivers. That’s No. 1. Kathy Hochul has tried to centralize that, and we’re hearing from caregivers all throughout New York state that they are being put out of business because Kathy Hochul now wants to organize all of them under one separate organization, and that doesn’t give people choice. That means that you get whatever they give you, and people should have choice. They want quality care and affordable care for their relatives and people that they care about and they love, and that’s not happening in New York state. So I would totally revamp the system, give people choice, and for those people who could not afford that, we would provide benefits for them so they could. But when you talk about care for elderly, especially, that’s something that is job No. 1. Our senior citizens, they created the foundation of our state. They built this state, and we should be helping them, not hurting them.

Speaking of high costs, the average Con Edison utility bill was up to $220 last year, from $157 in 2020. PSEG on Long Island was $170 last year, up from $136 just five years ago. According to an AARP survey, 84% of New Yorkers over the age of 50 said that their spending on utilities has increased, and some of them have been cutting back on food and healthcare and other basics, just to make up for utility bills. So you mentioned it before, but how would you address the high cost of utility bills and help New Yorkers who are struggling?

So Kathy Hochul has approved 48 utility rate hikes, 48 in just four years. That’s one a month. That’s one of the reasons why our utility rates are so high. The other is the green energy scam, where Kathy Hochul wants to go all-electric. She takes money out of our utility bill payments to invest in science projects that produce very little energy. They’re very expensive – like wind turbines in the middle of the ocean – very expensive to build, very expensive to maintain. Or solar farms in places upstate that are under snow for three months. It’s a big scam. She’s paying billions and billions of dollars of subsidies with our money, and again, producing very little energy. She gets millions of dollars in political contributions from these corporations, many of which are which foreign corporations. Also, we have one of the largest natural gas reserves in the world in the Southern Tier of New York, and Kathy Hochul won’t let us extract that natural gas. That’s why Pennsylvania, where they do allow it, has 70% less utility bills than New York. And they’re getting tax revenue. They’re getting jobs. They’re prosperous. In the Pennsylvania side of the border, they’re driving brand-new Cadillac Escalades. On the New York side of the border, 25-year-old rusted-out pickup trucks. So I will open up the Marcellus Shale on the Southern Tier in New York. We will extract that energy supply. And by increasing that energy supply, it will dramatically bring down costs. By ending the green energy scam and by extracting that natural gas, I will be able to cut your utility bills in half.

A different kind of scam that we’re also paying attention to is scamming older adults. You know, adults over 60 and older have lost nearly $300 million to elder fraud just in the past year across the country. Scammers are using new technology like AI, taking advantage of cryptocurrency in order to try new schemes. Is this on your radar? And if elected, how would you help better protect older New Yorkers from fraud and scams like this?

I deal with this issue every day with our police department. So there are a number of things that can be done. No. 1 is public information. We have to educate the elderly about these types of scams. So if someone calls you, or they text you, or they email you asking for money, your radar should go up. You should be aware: Why is this person asking me for money? If they ask you for your Social Security number, never give that out. If they ask you for banking information, never give that out. And if they tell you a story that seems outrageous, like, “we found out that your granddaughter was involved in a car accident in another state, and she needs money right away, and if you send us $5,000 right now, we’ll send it to her so she gets medical care, otherwise, she won’t get medical care,” that’s a scam. What I would say to the elderly out there is No. 1: If anybody asks you for money, don’t give them any money. Don’t give them any information unless you can verify that it’s absolutely legitimate. That’s No. 1. No. 2, I have beefed up our elder care police enforcement. We are actively engaged in it. We even run programs where we try to catch these criminals before they do these acts. We have detectives that pretend they’re elderly so that we can have these people who engage in these criminal acts caught before they actually do scam somebody. So it’s something I take very, very seriously. But you also have to get the information out there: not to give information, not to give money unless it’s completely verified.

What do you think is the biggest opportunity in New York to increase voter registration and civic participation in our state?

I tell everybody, you’re not a patriot if you don’t vote. I don’t care what your political persuasion is. If you’re not voting, you’re not committing a patriotic act. Because voting is the most precious right that we have in a democracy. And by not exercising that right, you’re not participating in the democracy. So there’s a lot of people out there who haven’t voted, and I would say, listen, if you care about your state, if you want to lower taxes, if you want to lower utility bills, if you want safer communities, if you want more prosperous communities, then you’ve got to participate and you’ve got to vote. And I would ask that they vote for me.