As New York became the epicenter for the COVID-19 outbreak, Governor Andrew Cuomo has become a darling of the left and the liberal media, despite making a series of significantly flawed decisions.
While cable news has seemingly endless segments to devote to Cuomo bantering with his brother about his relationship status and their favorite tomato sauce recipe, Cuomo’s outrageous treatment of thousands of frontline volunteer workers has been largely ignored.
Faced with the largest outbreak of COVID-19 in the nation, Cuomo pleaded for healthcare workers across the country to “please come help us in New York now.” Tens of thousands of healthcare workers answered the call and traveled to New York to assist the dire situation. Little did these heroic frontline workers know that in addition to their work on the frontlines of the pandemic, “they were also going to be assisting the state dig itself out of a financial hole.”
Instead of rewarding the 21,000 healthcare workers who volunteered their time to save the lives of New Yorkers, Cuomo decided to tax them. Volunteers were “shocked” to learn that Cuomo would be sticking them with a bill – workers who spent at least 14 days in the state would be forced to pay New York taxes on income they earned from their employers back home while they were in New York.
Rather than take immediate action and exempt the volunteer workers he begged for from his state’s crushing tax burden, Cuomo admitted that the extra cash could be used to help plug New York’s massive $13 billion deficit, which has ballooned on his watch.
A recent Forbescolumn notes that Americans are hearing crickets from Cuomo’s media fan club on his move to tax healthcare workers donating their time to help his state:
Governor Cuomo is generating favorable press for his on-camera banter with his quarantine-breaking. anchorman brother. Meanwhile the fact that Governor Cuomo is holding volunteer health workers financially hostage, the very health workers he urged to come to the Empire State and help treat
COVID-19 patients, gets less attention.“Brave frontline healthcare workers answered the call help their fellow Americans in New York as they faced an unprecedented threat from COVID-19,” said RGA Communications Director Amelia Chassé Alcivar. “When the time came to thank these heroic volunteers, Governor Cuomo handed them a tax bill instead. It’s appalling that this needs to be said, but taxing volunteers you begged for is not the solution to New York’s massive budget problems, governor.”