NYS energy rebate checks, Medicare refunds, hitting Long Island mailboxes near Election Day

WASHINGTON — This election season, Long Island voters may have more than just political flyers waiting in their mailboxes — one-time checks from the state and federal governments that credit elected officials.

Just weeks before Election Day, millions of New York households — including 1.2 million on Long Island — have started to receive a utility rebate check of up to $200, as part of a state budget deal negotiated by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is seeking reelection this year against Republican challenger Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.

President Donald Trump, whose party is facing a historically tough midterm election season, announced earlier this month that more than 20 million U.S. seniors enrolled in Medicare Part B will receive a $90 rebate to help offset their healthcare costs.

In Nassau and Suffolk, more than 600,000 children under the age of 18 were among the 60 million American youths automatically enrolled by the Trump administration last month into the federal government’s Trump Accounts investment program — with families of babies born in his second term receiving $1,000 in seed money approved by the Republican-majority Congress last year.

Hochul aides said the utility rebates are one step in an ongoing push to reduce energy costs in the state, and White House officials contend Trump is trying to deliver on campaign promises to lower healthcare costs and set up investments for kids.

Political analysts, however, contend the timing of the checks is not mere coincidence, and part of a long American and New York political tradition of using such checks to appeal to the pocketbook concerns of voters.

"As the saying goes, ‘It's the economy, stupid,’ ” said Thomas Kahn, a lecturer at the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University.

Federal and state laws prohibit candidates from paying voters in exchange for their vote, but there’s no keeping officeholders from rolling out wallet-filling policies close to Election Day.

"The practice goes back quite a way," said Ken Girardin, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative-leaning think-tank, noting state rebates were issued by former Govs. George Pataki, a Republican, in 1998 when he was running for his second term and Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, in 2014 during his second term reelection bid.

Former Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, a Democrat, running for reelection in 2021, launched a plan approved by the county legislature to provide $375 COVID-relief checks to Nassau homeowners, using $100 million in federal COVID relief funding provided to the county. She narrowly lost that year to Blakeman, who called the checks "peanuts" and who has since called the utility rebates a "big election-year scam," in his race against Hochul.

Hochul's campaign communications director Sarafina Chitika, when asked about Blakeman’s criticism, particularly the timing of the rebates, said the energy rebates, and inflation rebate checks that went out to 8.2 million New Yorkers last year, are all part of an effort to put money in "families’ pockets."

"Governor Hochul knows what it’s like to stretch a paycheck for a young family, and she’s governed like it," Chitika said in a statement.

Girardin said while politicians tout the rebates and checks as ways to boost the economy, they are typically funded through taxpayer dollars, or programs experiencing a surplus of funds, so "there is never a good reason, ever, for elected officials signing their names on checks or sending letters that credit them with those payments."

Getting credit

The state's energy rebate checks come attached to a note stating Hochul and members of the state legislature — who are also on the ballot this year — "are sending $1 billion directly to New Yorkers to help offset the high cost of utility bills."

Trump’s signature appears on letters and emails notifying Medicare users of their rebates, and on letters to more than 1 million Affordable Care Act enrollees in more than a dozen states, excluding New York, who are receiving $500 checks for what Trump calls excessive fees under the Biden administration.

At campaign rallies over the past month, Trump has pledged to issue $5,000 "Trump dividend" checks to U.S. adults if Republicans retain control of Congress — a promise that fiscal policy experts have said is unlikely to pass because it would require lawmakers to sign off on $1.2 trillion in new spending that could potentially spur more inflation.

The president also has received a boost from some of his top billionaire donors, doling out money in his name in recent weeks. Amazon — founded by Jeff Bezos, who has praised Trump during his second term and donated $1 million to his second inauguration committee — has started issuing $2.5 billion worth of settlement checks owed to millions of U.S. users over deceptive subscription policies, with a note crediting "President Trump’s Federal Trade Commission," according to Politico. The commission has historically served as an independent consumer protection agency with bipartisan appointees, and former officials told Politico past settlement checks were never attributed to presidents.

Earlier this week, billionaire Elon Musk, pledged to donate shares of his company Space X to "every kid in America," via their Trump Accounts, his promise coming as he has spent more than $445 million of his own money boosting Republican candidates this election year through his political action committee — America PAC.

Asked about the timing of all the federal rebates and pledges of future money, White House spokesman Davis Ingle, in a statement to Newsday, said: "The doomers and naysayers have consistently doubted President Trump."

Analysts: Some goodwill, but uncertain sway

But the timing of such giveaways and campaign pledges so close to Election Day cannot be shrugged off, said Kahn, with the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University.

"Why are you waiting for less than two weeks before the election to make all these kinds of promises?" Kahn said in a phone interview.

Kahn, a former staff director for the House Budget Committee, said voters feeling the pinch of ACA tax subsidies that were not renewed this year, or Medicare cuts included in the massive tax-and-spend bill passed by Congress last year, may be less swayed by Trump’s rebates.

"A $500 rebate is a start, but it really doesn't begin to address the huge financial increase in healthcare costs that middle-class Americans are facing, particularly the ones who lost their enhanced credits under the Affordable Care Act [subsidies], and this doesn't even touch the Medicaid cuts that were in the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill,’ over a trillion dollars in Medicaid cuts. This is just kind of scratching the surface," Kahn said.

Political strategists from both parties contend the election-time checks may engender some goodwill that encourages voters to head to the polls, but they do little to woo undecided voters or flip partisan voters.

"You're certainly not going to change anybody who's already made their mind up whether they're voting right or left," said Michael Dawidziak, a Bayport-based political adviser who previously worked for President George H.W. Bush. "I don’t think anybody who’s already planning to vote Republican is going to say, ‘Oh well, maybe I’ll vote for a Democrat this year.’ ”

Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic campaign adviser, said a government-sponsored rebate could ultimately be a reminder to voters about the high costs of utilities, healthcare and other staples.

"It's kind of like, thanks," Sheinkopf said. "Thanks very much, but no thanks."

By Laura Figueroa Hernandez

laura.figueroa@newsday.com@Laura_Figueroa

Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.