Governor Hochul Delivers Remarks at the Business Council of NYS Annual Meeting
A rush transcript of the Governor’s remarks is available below:
Heather, always great for an excuse to leave the big city and come up to God’s country here. And I’ve been up here many times this summer and the weather’s been spectacular. So, thank you, Heather, for your leadership as well. And I hope you feel you have the accessibility to my office because your voice representing the business community is so important to us as we work hard together to make New York the most business-friendly state in America. I said we’re going to get there and we’re getting there. So, thank you. Heather. Let’s give Heather another round of applause here.
I know a former Governor just walked out. I just said hi to David Patterson. I don’t know if he’s still in the room, but we have a great relationship. I understand there’s some speculation about my future going on here. Yeah, why don’t you ask the person who’s involved here? I’m not going anywhere. I’m running in ‘26. I love this job. I’ve lived in Washington, and I’ll keep working on getting that grandbaby moved up to New York, so I don’t have any temptation at all.
Also, Bob Duffy, who’s taken the post position of being Lieutenant Governor and really transformed it as a voice for the business community in this Finger Lake seat region. But also, when we have our challenges and I need a steady hand to go out and help solve problems like making sure the Buffalo Bills are happy. So, I look forward to opening day in the new stadium in fall of 2026. We’re on schedule, right? Alright, that’s comfortably on schedule. I’ve been out to the sites. Bob, thank you for all you do.
Marsha Gordon here. I’ve done a lot with you in the Mid Hudson region, so thank you for everything you do. All of my other friends and allies, I see many friends from Buffalo.
And I’ll just give you a few reflections on how far we’ve come. When I first stood before you in 2021, people didn’t know if I was going to make it. I was viewed as a transition Governor. I think we put that by the wayside. And it was a very turbulent time. We had just come out of the pandemic. The future is very uncertain. And the business community had taken it on the chin. Our smaller businesses, large businesses, remote work, will people come back? Interest rates started going up a few years later. Then we had the highest inflation in 40 years. It’s been a tough time for the business community. But what I can do from this position is to leverage the power I have to support the businesses who are here, find ways to help them find new markets, bring new customers in, but also do outside recruitment to have more members to the Business Council.
And we’ve been very successful in positioning New York State as a leader in technology. Not something that you would have associated with us as part of our brand years ago, but we’ve leaned hard into it. SUNY Nanotech is just taking off in ways we could not have foreseen. The federal dollars coming there, the relationship of Chuck Schumer and myself and driving assistance there from the billion-dollar investment we just made there. But also, you can’t go too many days without people in New York City asking me what’s happening with Micron. I mean I’m so proud of what we’ve achieved here, and there’s probably a book to be written about all the behind the scene effort that had to go on to wrestle them from other states that at first they thought were better for them until we persuaded them that there’s no place like New York – as far as the caliber, the workforce we could offer.
I may have told you the story, but there was a snowstorm in January a couple years ago and I was told not to get on that plane, and I usually listen. But I knew the CEO was only going to be coming from Idaho to Syracuse for a very short time and I was supposed to meet him for about a half an hour. That half hour went into two and a half hours because I could not stop telling the CEO of Micron how incredible it would be to have them here and how amazing it would be for their future. And a lot of time, a lot of effort, bringing the labor community on board so they could work through their issues as well, which is about how we got this done.
But also, now we are literally changing the curriculum. And I don’t just want to do it there, but with working with the teachers, the United Teachers, working together to make sure that we change the curriculum for all the students in that whole region, so they’re learning more about coding and computer science and positioning them to take these jobs in the future. And I’m not just talking about the suburban areas that are doing well. I’m talking about the inner city of Syracuse and the neighboring counties to change their future by giving them the tools they need. It’s attractive to businesses, it’s attractive to the community because they see a different outcome and future for their kids – hopeful. A chance to take a step into these great jobs once we open it up.
It’s not just Micron either, it’s the supply chain, and many of you are in the service sector. These are people that are going to be banking with you and buying insurance from you and needing your marketing services. The supply chain companies are coming. I made a phone call over to London a year ago. Edwards Vacuum – never heard of it, learned all about it, but they make the heat pumps that support Micron and they’re going to a place called Batavia, 600 jobs there, which is extraordinary. So, this is the ripple effect. I’m not going to dwell on this, but this is what I’m trying to do is you bring in some of the big fish, but the ripple effect throughout the economy is profound.
And we’re going to continue working on it, especially with something I announced in my State of the State in January. Just developed just a couple of months before that. The question came to me, does New York State want to be the national leader in developing artificial intelligence? Or are we going to leave that to places like California? Now, I’m very competitive. I wouldn’t be in this job if I wasn’t. And I said, “Of course, we’re going to be the leader. What does it take?” So, listening to the business community, we put together a consortium. And I had to come up with $275 million from the state to invest in Empire AI. I have raised $150 million from the private sector.
We have all of our major educational institutions buying into access to this – not just Columbia and Cornell and RPI and all the others. It’s also the public schools. We’ve invested now to have access to artificial intelligence for SUNY and CUNY. That is a game changer. Talk to the Chancellor what this means. What we’re doing is using this money to build the largest supercomputer dedicated to artificial intelligence research and development in the entire nation that is outside private companies’ hands. We’re democratizing this and using it for public good and developing ideas that just seem fictitious right now but will actually be operationalized right here in New York. And we’re doing it at the University at Buffalo, because I knew I could find space there, less cost, and have powerful, plentiful energy sources there.
But this will be used all over the State of New York. I’ve spoken at more tech conferences. I’ve been called out in California. They’re saying, “How did you do that?” Because they’re watching what we’re doing here, and it is extraordinary. So, I just want to put those out there as the big picture areas where I’m focusing a lot of my attention and energy on recruiting businesses here. But it’s also looking closely at the business climate that you have. And I’ve heard complaints like when I first started our smaller businesses, “Why is it so hard to get MWBE certification in the State of New York?”
Now, having attempted this for my sister’s company, which was started as a small tech company, became very successful. I was once her in-house counsel; she’s moved on from me. Also, my mother’s little business selling flowers in the Village of Hamburg. I knew how hard it is to have a woman owned business or a minority owned business. And why is it so hard to get that certification?
We had a huge backlog. It took an average of 450 days once you had applied to get the answer on whether or not you were certified. You know what it is now? 90 days. We certified another 2,500 new businesses just last year alone. This is how you can use the power of government with leadership that sees all the problems and barriers for businesses and just breaks them down – tells my team, “Go solve that.” My other talent is that I find the smartest people. I have a talented team; I just have to unleash them to solve problems that exist out there.
So, we’re also just looking at the economic factors. I was just asked by a reporter – I did a press event on social media and cell phones in schools. Any parents out there? Yeah? How are you feeling about your kids on social media all day during math class? It’s not good. Employers, it’s not good for you either. So, I just did an event, 500 people gathered in Albany. Did not expect this when I went on this journey a year ago. But the focus was driven by teachers, by the PTAs, by the school districts, with government leaders saying, enough is enough. We’re losing a generation of kids who are being bombarded with social media algorithms that are not positive forces.
I can tell you right now, if you ever see this, a young child thinking or a teenager thinking about suicide, they put in “suicide,” they’re not going to get support services or where to go for help or some positive messaging. They’re going to find out 300 ways to commit suicide, okay?
This is a dark place for our kids. Adults, they can be more discerning. They’ll have judgment. The young kids in our society are bombarded with addictive algorithms, and guess what was the first state in the nation who said, no more? It was us.
I stood up to those tech companies. I said, “I love having you here. You’re welcome. I want your jobs. I want your growth. But you also have kids.” And now I just learned that Instagram, listening to us, because people were talking to them in their headquarters this week, they saw what New York was doing and they decided to start getting ahead as well. They are now joining us and stopping the notifications all night long.
They can do this. They told me they couldn’t. They said, “It’s impossible for us to figure out whether someone is 18 or under or an adult. So how are we going to do this?” I said, “You’re tech companies. You’re supposed to figure things out. You figure out everything else.” Guess what? They figured it out. Instagram just announced it.
But I don’t want cell phones being a distraction in our classrooms for a number of reasons. One, is it’s not healthy for them. Two, it’s frustrating for the teachers. But number three, we’re not developing a connected, interactive, sociable workforce for you. Think about that. These kids’ interaction all day long is with their hands staring at their cell phone. They don’t even know how to make eye contact anymore. But when they leave school, they’re supposed to be able to do the creative collisions and work on teams and work with adults and people of all ages? They’re not going to be fully functioning because they’re being denied the growth time that this part of their lives is supposed to give them.
That’s the urgency I feel. That’s what I have to do for your future employees, is to save them now. Let them just learn like we are able to learn, without distractions. And moms and dad after hours, they’re already, on average, on social media five hours a day. Surgeon General said anything over three is dangerous to their health.
It’s a health care crisis. It is a mental health crisis, and the kids just go on all night long. We have got to keep an eye on them, but it also is going to have an impact on our workforce. And that’s why if we stop right now, lead the nation, take all the hits that are coming, and I don’t mind, and I get hit every day of the week. Bring it on, because I’ll stand up for our kids and your future workers any day of the week. So help join in that effort as we have to break through a lot of opposition. It’s never easy, but it is going to be worthwhile when the next kids coming through never know the ill effects of social media as kids, and they don’t have a cell phone in their hand all day in school.
So, if you can team up with me on that – again, the tie is, these are your future workers. We’re not here to raise kids. We’re here to raise adults. Ultimately, they’ll be adults, more their life than they are kids, and they’ll be working for all of you. So that’s another focus as well.
What’s happening with the Budget? Someone asked me today, are we going to raise income taxes? I said, “I’m not raising income taxes.” I said I’m not. I stopped a huge income tax increase last year. I don’t think it’s a good strategy for economic development to find more reasons for businesses to leave the State of New York. Or our high-net-worth people who, I say, “I’m happy you’re in New York.” And maybe they didn’t hear that for a long time with Occupy Wall Street and all this other socialism that was going on, but you need to be reassured that the people who are actually in elected office in the highest positions right here don’t support that.
I come from a business family, they worked hard. Taxes are a factor in your calculation of where you’re going to do your business. And I want you to stay here and I want you to grow, and I want you to be successful, that is my promise to all of you. And looking at regulations and every single bill that comes before me, looking at it, who is hurt by this? No one asks those questions. Will this be a driver of people out of our state? Will it make it too difficult here? We ask those questions and the answer better be a good one for the business community because you are the employers of New Yorkers who I need to stay here as well.
So, we want people to be successful. I’m proud to see some of the conditions are really improving in New York. It’s been noticed by others. Future business activity index just increased by eight points. The interest rate, are you still high fiving that? That’s going to be a game changer for us.
I can’t tell you how many businesses say to me, I’m going to expand when capital becomes more accessible. I’ll build more housing when interest rates come down. The real estate market, all this pent-up demand and the supply chain, all the companies that rely on growth in housing.
First Governor in 50 years to take on housing and boy, I got burned at first until we persevered. And got people talking about the fact that we have a huge shortage of housing, and it is hurting everyone everywhere. It is driving up the cost of living in New York. It is huge the more we build, prices go down, basic 101 supply and demand. I had to give that education in Albany because nobody quite understood that. They do now. We have an aggressive plan to use state-owned property to build housing on. Anywhere I can find an inch of space, I’m going to say, is this a place I can build housing? Not just the 50,000 people that are moving up to Central New York for Micron. I have demand in every corner of the state, which is a good thing. It is a good thing. But we have to meet that demand with aggressive policies on housing. We’ve accomplished that as well.
So, a couple other factors I want to talk about, as I mentioned, the factors that go into the budget and taxes. We’re looking good right now. You heard from Blake Washington yesterday. He gave you the whole PowerPoint. I saw that. So, you have all those numbers in your head. These are very positive outcomes. I will tell you when I stood here in 2021, we had four percent in reserves for the state. Now I did municipal budgets for 14 years in the town of Hamburg. We are always told, do not go below 15 that rainy day because the rainy day comes and there’s an economic downturn. There’s a recession and the only option is to raise taxes higher. That’s not what you want to do. You do not want to do that. So, I’ve been building up and building up reserves. We went from four percent to well over 15 percent, went from about $3 billion. I have $21 billion in reserves right now. That is my security blanket, to be able to handle any downturn, but also crises that arrive.
When I had to come up with more money to help the migrant situation in New York City, because we could not have thousands of people homeless in the streets of New York, I was able to pull a small amount from that. So, I’m going to use that as the buffer I need.
As we’re developing our budget, developing what our taxes are going to need to be. Knowing that I have a better economy going into this, better than I’ve had in all my years as Governor. These are positive trends that are happening in New York, and I hope you can feel that.
And I look at all of you as the people who are the ambassadors. It is the ones who have the knowledge now. After a conference like this, I know you covered a lot of topics, I saw your agenda, you covered a lot. You need to share that sense of optimism with not just your employees, but all the organizations you belong to, because success breeds success, optimism breeds optimism, and that’s what I want to create here, not just in the business community, but all over New York.
For people who say we’re going in the wrong direction, but you show the statistics. Crime is down. We’re almost at 50-year lows in crime. That’s extraordinary. Streets are safer, more investment in schools, more investment in SUNY and CUNY, so we can give you a highly educated workforce. There’s a lot of positive things happening, but there’s this sense. And I do believe part of it is fostered by people not just reading the news, but also being bombarded with social media all day long. And they know the clicks do not go to the positive stories like crime is down and streets are safer, and businesses are coming to New York and unemployment is down. Those aren’t driving the clicks. Therefore, they do not get in front of you all day long. We have to fight against that. We have to fight against that pervasive attitude of negativity because the data does not verify that.
So, I’m going to keep working hard. I’m going to build you a strong workforce in every area where we’re growing. We’re growing intensely in the clean energy environment. I held a conference in Syracuse last week. We had to shut it down, so many people wanted to be there as part of our new energy future. How we’re going to make this transition, which I’m required by law to do, under state law. We’re going to get there, but in a way that does not hurt the business community, does not hurt our customers, and makes sense for protecting our climate. Climate change is real. I have had to preside over more natural disasters than any governor in history. We had 23 tornadoes in July alone, more than all the states in Tornado Alley combined. I had two 1,000-year events in the last two years, including one that bombarded Long Island just a few months ago.
The storms are crazy. They’re very expensive. And they keep coming and coming and coming. The temperatures are higher. The snowstorms are worse. I have to be prepared to protect New Yorkers in the short term, which is what we focus on, but also in the long term. So, our clean energy strategy is building for that as well.
I want you to know that is why we’re doing this. Therefore, I’m going to wrap up right now. I have so much more to say. I’m very excited about this. But you’re a great audience because you’re the ones who understand what I’m talking about intensely. The barriers that are out there, you know how hard we’re working to break them down and there’s always more to do, right, Heather?
I’m sure you have a very robust agenda. And I look forward to continuing a deep relationship with the business community, because you matter to me in ways that you’ll never understand, because I know the struggles. I know how hard it is to start out, I know when you’re just looking around the corner, you’re not sure what’s going to happen, competition from abroad, will there be tariffs, there’s a lot of uncertainty, but you are the resilient ones who power through this, and I’m really truly proud to represent you as your Governor. Thank you.
September 20, 2024 Albany, New York
Sources: Midtown Tribune news, NY State Governor Governor.NY.gov
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