Saturday, May 1, 2010

Andrew Cuomo and Albany dysfunction

“We have to clean up the gridlock. We have to clean up the dysfunction. We have to clean up the waste. We have to clean up the delay. Enough is enough, my friends. The state government works for the people, and the people have been failed by this state government.”
Andrew Cuomo at Dem. Rural Conference last night.
*****
Nobody can disagree with the AG on this.
But it does sound like Eliot Spitzer in 2006.
There is a system problem in Albany.
There is a need for a transforming leader on the Capitol's 2nd floor.
Mario Cuomo was (is) a New Deal liberal, but governed as a pragmatic triangular. As he often said, campaigning is poetry, and governing is prose.
There are some basic reforms that are doable.
Make a June 1st budget the legal Constitutional (if required) norm. It is, unofficially, now.
Make it a two year budget cycle, with a new budget required in off-election years.
Deal with Medicaid...it is the monster eating New York.
At least two commissions have recommended that the local school property tax be replaced by a real progressive state income tax.
Lazio's mantra will be less government, low taxes.
It's not less government that is needed, but rather making the existing government responsive and transparent.
It is tax reform that is needed, including the above change in the local property taxes.

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