New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo collected more money than any governor in American history last year as he forced his state’s citizens and businesses to suffer from lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, Forbes reported.
Cuomo earned $225,000 in 2020, slightly more than California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who earned $202,000 last year.
Since 2018, Cuomo’s salary has increased by 40%, or $71,000. It was $179,000 in 2018.
New York state legislators also saw their salaries jump over three years from $79,500 in 2018 to $130,000 in 2021, USA Today reported.
The mainstream media deceptively reported that the governor and state legislature did not vote for their own pay raises, but that is a half-truth.
Cuomo and the legislature first installed a five-member State Compensation Committee, which then dutifully voted to raise their salaries by 40%.
The committee approved a raise in the governor’s salary to $250,000 this year, but Cuomo opted to keep his salary at $225,000 to avoid more bad publicity.
Federal taxpayers subsidized the New York government’s lavish expenditures.
Congress stuffed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, which was ostensibly designed to combat the flu-like coronavirus, with a $23.5 billion bailout for poorly managed New York.
By contrast, Florida, with better finances and more residents than New York, garnered $17.5 billion from the bailout.
Cuomo’s income does not end with his official salary.
He gained $4 million from his book, American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The book’s success rested on his administration’s cover-up of the state’s nursing-home death toll, which spiked because of Cuomo’s decision to put COVID-positive patients into facilities with healthy patients.
About 15,000 seniors died in nursing homes due to his coronavirus policies.
Allegations have also surfaced that Cuomo used state employees to write the book, a violation of state law.
