How NY-22 candidates Sarah Klee Hood, John Mannion would approach economy, housing

Sarah Klee Hood and John Mannion believe the economy is on the upswing after four years of world economic challenges spurred by the Covid-19 pandemic. 

But both candidates also believe families have not yet felt the positive impact of the current presidential administrations’ efforts to curb inflation of gas and grocery prices. 

Klee Hood and Mannion are vying in the Democratic primary to face incumbent Rep. Brandon Williams to represent New York’s 22nd Congressional District. The race concludes June 25, election day. 

In interviews with Central Current, the candidates laid out plans to ease tax burdens on working class Central New Yorkers and make basic needs more affordable. They advocated for a restructuring of the tax code reforms ushered in by President Donald Trump’s administration in 2017, which they noted acted as a giveaway to top earners. 

Sarah Klee Hood

Central Current: Polls show Americans perceive our current market/economy to be poor. Do you believe that to be the case? Why/why not?

Sarah Klee Hood: It’s a yes and a no. When you look at the numbers, the economy is doing great. We are at one of the lowest unemployment levels ever. But at the end of the day, when I talk to community members — and my family’s feeling it ourselves —prices are rising, and there’s no denying it. 

There’s a lot that the federal government and Congress can do. They can enforce antitrust legislation. When you walk into a grocery store down the cereal aisle, there are three major corporations that produce all of that cereal that ensures that they are able to price fix the market. They’re able to drive up consumer pricing, reduce the quantity of food that people are getting, all the while their shareholders are getting more. We have to bring competition back into the market.

We should also be talking about the current tax code of 2017, the trickle down economics, we’re living the result of it right now. It does not work for Central New Yorkers. We have to ensure that we get tax reform that doesn’t continue to gut the middle and lower classes.The ultra rich and the higher echelon of income makers are getting tax breaks. Corporations are getting tax breaks, and it’s the middle class and the working class that are footing the bill for the U.S. economy. We need to reverse that paradigm.”

CC: How would you encourage the federal government to attack inflation and corporate price gouging?

Klee Hood: It’s ensuring that there aren’t mergers and acquisitions that allow corporations to consolidate the market. In other words, it’s ensuring that we have competition to help drive down pricing. Why don’t we look at ceiling caps for prices of everyday goods? We do it in other industries.

CC: What action do you support the federal government taking to help ease the region’s housing crisis?

Klee Hood: Oh, there’s so much that we can do. … So there is the American (Neighborhood Protection) Act that is currently at the federal level right now. That pot of money can then be turned around and redirected back to communities like Central New York to help us offset the cost of either upgrading housing or building new houses. 

Across this district, we have very old lead-laden houses that are simply unsafe. A lot of them are owned by absentee landlords or, unfortunately, corporate escrow accounts such as AirBnB. And both of those situations are artificially inflating our housing market and pricing folks that live here every single day, that live and work here, its pricing them out of the market. So there is opportunity for the federal government to start pushing down or breaking up the opportunity for corporate escrow accounts to buy housing in neighborhoods such as ours, where we already have a depleted market. And I think that there’s an opportunity for the federal government to also help support and bolster legislation that says, if you’ve got an old housing stock that is unsafe, if the landlord is unable or unwilling to bring it up to codes and standards, then the landlord doesn’t need the house anymore. We’re going to take it and in the place of one larger house, we’re able to put it in tiny houses. They’re highly efficient, they’re highly affordable, and once folks are able to stabilize their lives through stable housing, they’re able to then go get that job. They’re able to put food on the table, and they’re able to do better for themselves.

Additional context: The American Neighborhoods Protection Act of 2023, currently in committees at the House of Representatives, establishes an excise tax on property owners. Those with a real estate portfolio of more than 75 single family homes would be taxed $10,000 per home for every owned property above the threshold. 

That money would be pooled in a housing trust fund and be distributed as grants to help families with down payments on single-family homes.

CC: Conversations about economic development are often centered on future residents. How do you think you can help the people already in the region?

Klee Hood: The reality is we have folks that have been living here their entire lives, and we shouldn’t be hinging their success on future developments. When I worked in the environmental sector, I worked for a program within New York state, and also at the U.S. Department of Energy. My role in that job was understanding the legislation on the table. This would pertain to environmental policy, but more importantly recognizing where our human resources were… and what are the market needs in terms of how do we put those people with the skills into the market to get jobs?

I think that we’ve got great potential with our community colleges and even our community centers… It doesn’t necessarily have to be college degrees. I’m looking to turn out some jobs, looking both toward the green economy, but also in the sectors that we have here that are bustling, such as the medical sector, the education sector and even the teaching sector.

John Mannion

Central Current: Polls show Americans perceive our current market/economy to be poor. Do you believe that to be the case? Why/why not?

John Mannion: People, because of inflation, are feeling it. That’s real, and as a result, there is that gut reaction that we’re in a bad economy when in fact we’re experiencing the highest rates of economic growth in almost a century. Wages are up, manufacturing is up, the stock market is up. So there really are lots of positives there.  the key factor is inflation. And that’s what’s impacting people’s lives. The government can do some things to keep dollars in people’s pockets and can have some influence over inflation. But the main thing driving inflation over the course of the last several years, is the fact that we were in a global pandemic. Our supply chain systems were greatly compromised. Our workforce systems are greatly compromised as well.”

CC: How would you encourage the federal government to attack inflation and corporate price gouging?

JM: There is legislation that can be passed, which provides very steep penalties or even criminal charges for price gouging, including the loss of government contracts, and that is something that would be worked through the Department of Justice.”

CC: What action do you support the federal government taking to help ease the region’s housing crisis?

JM: At the federal level, we have to make sure that our first time homebuyer ship programs, you know, are supported with grants, and also very low, if not zero interest rates for our first time homebuyers, those are some of the things that can happen at the state and the federal level. Doing all that there’s an affordability piece, and affordable housing piece that really wraps around all of this, that if someone is, you know, if someone is going to rent, and somebody is going to develop, there has to be an emphasis on affordable housing, we need more affordable housing. It shouldn’t be a part of almost every development project. And we do that by incentivizing it at the federal and state level. We can do that at the federal level as well. We already have, you know, as far as our public housing programs go.

CC: Conversations about economic development are often centered on future residents. How do you think you can help the people already in the region?

JM: I’ve already done it. This is how we have pivoted with our state programs to make sure people are getting the help that they need. That’s why I’m proud to have expanded universal pre-K in upstate New York. I’m proud to have expanded universal school meals, we have expanded the number of individuals that are covered in the state regarding health insurance. We passed legislation to protect individuals from being sued from our healthcare institutions. We provided credit grant funding to childcare institutions to be able to expand, particularly if they exist in a… childcare desert. All of those things are really a real response to the concerns that we’ve heard.