Congresswoman Claudia Tenney on Blakeman / Hochul Debate and the State of New York

I want to start with last night and the debate for governor.

Kathy Hochul used President Trump's name 33 times in a one hour debate that had to do with governor, not a federal office.

What were your thoughts?

Yeah, I was glad that my staff did not encourage this to be a drinking game for us, that every time she said Donald Trump or blamed Donald Trump, because I didn't have it.

All I had basically last night was soda.

So anyway, it was it was it just proves that she has.

A terrible record.

She has failed as governor.

She blamed Governor Cuomo, remember, before.

And now she had a clean slate going into 2022.

And now she's made the state even worse than I ever could imagine.

And she blamed everything on Donald Trump.

100% of every problem in New York right now is the fault of of the Democrats who run everything in New York State, particularly the disastrous energy policies she has.

So when she talks about utilities, we have the third highest residential utility rates in the nation because of the Democrats policies in 2019.

And she continues to double down on those policies.

We tried to give relief in as many ways as we could through HR1, which was the big comprehensive tax cut bill that we passed last year, the largest tax cut in American history to prevent the largest tax increase in American history.

If we didn't pass that bill, Americans and New Yorkers would have had the highest tax increase in American history.

And guess what? They got a tax cut.

They got 40, a $40,000 tax, uh, you know, benefit from the increasing the state and local tax deduction, which helped middle-class New Yorkers all across our region.

They got the seniors got up to $6,000 in a re in, in tax back and money that they got back.

No tax on tips, no tax on overtime.

All those things were helpful.

But most importantly, the actual provisions that were made permanent for our business community.

Now in my district, New York 24, that sort of circles Lake Ontario, that district is 95% of the people that go to work in that district go to work in a small business.

When you go to work in a small business, And 95% of the people are small business owners.

I want to start with last night and the debate for governor.

Kathy Hochul used President Trump's name 33 times in a one hour debate that had to do with governor, not a federal office.

What were your thoughts?

Yeah, I was glad that my staff did not encourage this to be a drinking game for us, that every time she said Donald Trump or blamed Donald Trump, because I didn't have it.

All I had basically last night was soda.

So anyway, it was it was it just proves that she has.

A terrible record.

She has failed as governor.

She blamed Governor Cuomo, remember, before.

And now she had a clean slate going into 2022.

And now she's made the state even worse than I ever could imagine.

And she blamed everything on Donald Trump.

100% of every problem in New York right now is the fault of of the Democrats who run everything in New York State, particularly the disastrous energy policies she has.

So when she talks about utilities, we have the third highest residential utility rates in the nation because of the Democrats policies in 2019.

And she continues to double down on those policies.

We tried to give relief in as many ways as we could through HR1, which was the big comprehensive tax cut bill that we passed last year, the largest tax cut in American history to prevent the largest tax increase in American history.

If we didn't pass that bill, Americans and New Yorkers would have had the highest tax increase in American history.

And guess what? They got a tax cut.

They got 40, a $40,000 tax, uh, you know, benefit from the increasing the state and local tax deduction, which helped middle-class New Yorkers all across our region.

They got the seniors got up to $6,000 in a re in, in tax back and money that they got back.

No tax on tips, no tax on overtime.

All those things were helpful.

But most importantly, the actual provisions that were made permanent for our business community.

Now in my district, New York 24, that sort of circles Lake Ontario, that district is 95% of the people that go to work in that district go to work in a small business.

When you go to work in a small business, And 95% of the people are small business owners.