Brock Pierce

The @FBI is raiding adult day care centers across NYC for Medicaid fraud. Ask yourself: why are the Feds doing this? @TishJames: Her Medicaid Fraud Control Unit went from 100+ indictments a year to fewer than 10. Washington was so fed up it pulled the unit's federal certification. New York ranked dead last. @KathyHochul: Her Health Department runs Medicaid. It kept paying while adult day care spending nearly quadrupled and Flushing packed 64 centers into one square mile. @TomDiNapoli: His office warned in 2015 that hundreds of these centers operated with no oversight. He waited a decade to audit them. By then $285 million in questionable payments had gone out the door. Three offices. One party. Billions stolen from seniors and taxpayers. As Comptroller, I'll launch a Fraud Strike Team and a whistleblower reward program from Day One. If you steal from the hard-working people of New York, I will find you and I will hold you accountable.

Want to hear something crazy? New York is paying the salaries of the reporters who are supposed to be watching New York's government. It's called the Local Journalism Sustainability Act (S.625 / A.2958), sponsored by Manhattan Democrat @bradhoylman and Saratoga Democrat @AMCarrieWoerner. @GovKathyHochul put it in the 2024 state budget. It hands out up to $30 million a year to cover as much as HALF of newsroom salaries. It's run by an agency that answers to the governor. And it expires in 2027, so the same politicians these papers are supposed to investigate get to decide whether the checks keep coming. Think that won't affect coverage? Nobody bites the hand that signs their paycheck. And it doesn't stop there. State law forces businesses to buy ads in "official" newspapers picked by politicians. NYC orders agencies to steer ad money to favored outlets. Piece by piece, New York's press has become financially dependent on the people it's meant to hold accountable. A watchdog on a leash isn't a watchdog at all. It’s a pet. Give the tax credits to readers, not publishers, and make every dollar given to these papers public. New Yorkers deserve a free press, not one funded by Albany. Follow to bring fiscal sanity back to New York.

A new poll of 800 likely New York voters says it plain: people want a Comptroller who protects their money, not one who plays politics with it. Start with fraud. 71% of voters say the state hasn't done enough to catch and stop fraud and waste in government spending. That includes most Democrats, 56% agree. This isn't a Republican-vs-Democrat thing. It's a "why is my tax money disappearing" thing. Same story with pensions. 68% of voters want the Comptroller focused on getting retirees and taxpayers the best possible return, not checking political boxes. Even most Democrats agree, 52% to 33%. When it comes to your retirement money, people want results, not politics. And when voters pick between a career politician and someone who's actually run businesses and managed real money? 51% choose the private-sector candidate. Only 29% pick the politician. Independents feel it even more strongly. The takeaway is simple: New Yorkers on both sides of the aisle want a Comptroller who acts like a watchdog, not a politician. That’s exactly the kind of Comptroller I’m running to be.

Another day, another theft of taxpayer dollars by politically connected scumbags. Federal authorities have charged several individuals tied to Brooklyn’s Pakistani-American community in connection with an alleged $38 million adult daycare fraud scheme. Prosecutors allege the defendants billed Medicaid for services that were never provided and used a network of shell companies and kickbacks to enrich themselves. Enough. Starting January 1, I will assemble a Fraud Strike Team inside the Comptroller’s Office dedicated to rooting out corruption and building prosecution files in coordination with city, state, and federal prosecutors. If you steal from New York taxpayers, enjoy the sunshine while you can. Because when we find you, you ain’t going to see much of it for a while. New Yorkers work too hard to have their money stolen by fraudsters and political insiders. The era of looking the other way is over. Accountability is coming.

New York didn’t stumble into an energy crisis. Albany built one. A decade ago, New York’s grid ran on a balanced mix of nuclear, natural gas, and renewables, and families paid about 18¢ per kWh for electricity. Then Albany shut down Indian Point in 2020 and 2021, eliminating 2,000 megawatts of clean, reliable, around-the-clock power. What happened next? Natural gas jumped from 36% to 47% of the grid. Renewables barely moved. Electricity prices climbed to nearly 30¢ per kWh, about 70% higher than the 2016 low and now among the highest in America. And the craziest part? New York sits on top of some of the most abundant, affordable natural gas in the country, yet politicians blocked the pipelines needed to bring it to consumers. The solution isn’t complicated: finish the pipelines, keep nuclear and build more of it, complete the Champlain Hudson transmission line, unlock the jobs and mineral rights of the Southern Tier, and eliminate the hidden fees driving up utility bills. Affordable, reliable power is a choice. As Comptroller, I’ll be the watchdog who holds Albany accountable for the cost of that choice.