Former Gov. George Pataki praised President Trump for moving to kill congestion pricing — and said New York needs its own cost-slashing version of DOGE.
Pataki, a Republican, said Gov. Kathy Hochul “wanted the money” from the $9 toll to enter Manhattan to fund the cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
“New York State gets enough money — too much money — from the taxpayers,” Pataki said on WABC 770s AM’s “The Cats Roundtable.”
“They don’t need more,” Pataki said. “New York is too expensive. The government costs too much. We could use a little DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency] in Albany and City Hall instead of raising taxes.”
He noted that the MTA is asking for billions more in capital funding from Albany — well beyond the revenues generated from the congestion toll.
“It never ends,” Pataki said of the proposed $65 billion, five-year plan. “It’s unsustainable.”
The MTA has sued to block the Trump administration from rescinding the toll and congestion pricing remains in effect for the time being.
Although New York’s last Republican governor had praise for Trump, he said he was baffled by the commander-in-chief’s handling of the negotiations to end Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine.
Pataki said Trump appeared to be harder on Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky than on Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin, who invaded Ukraine three years ago, on Feb. 24, 2022.
Pataki has visited Ukraine numerous times as part of relief efforts through his charitable group.
“President Trump‘s positioning on Ukraine so far has been completely wrong,” Pataki told host John Catsimatidis.
He likened it to how former President Joe Biden handled the Hamas-Israel conflict, putting too much pressure on Israel instead of Hamas.
“Sadly, I think, Trump is making the same mistake that Biden made with Israel in the case of Ukraine,” the former three-term governor said. “Instead of putting all the pressure on Putin — who’s clearly the bad guy, a horrible human being — he’s putting the pressure on Ukraine.
“I don’t think anyone wants the war to end sooner than the Ukrainian people,” he went on. “But the way to do it is not to pressure Ukraine. It’s to pressure Putin and Russia, because they’re the ones that are wrong. They’re the ones who have acted like barbarians … And they’re the ones who should be under the pressure to reach a reasonable peace.”
Pataki called Putin a “killer who is anti-American, anti-Western, anti-civilization.”
The Post reached out to the White House for comment.
Washington and Kyiv engaged in a tense exchange of barbs over the past week.
Trump, who is trying to bring the fighting to a close on terms that Kyiv at one point said were too favorable to Moscow, lashed out at Zelensky, writing on Truth Social on Feb. 19 that the Ukrainian leader was a “dictator without elections.”
“In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do,” he wrote in a lengthy Truth Social rant, referencing Ukraine suspending elections last year due to the war — as dictated in Ukrainian law.
“Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the ‘gravy train’ going. I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died – And so it continues.”
The Post reported Friday that tensions cooled between Washington and Kiev.
The Trump administration is said to be close to a deal with Ukraine for access to hundreds of billions of dollars worth of mineral rights in a giant step toward ending Russia’s grinding war on the European nation.
