Another reason we need better Dems

It is a 62-target rich environment (0.00 / 0)

---

by: Andrew C. White @ Thu Nov 05, 2009 at 11:07:30 AM CST

Anyone know what the biggest turn-over (0.00 / 0)

in Senate history is?

I'm thinking a 1/3 turn-over of new Senators is very achievable in 2010.

---

by: Andrew C. White @ Thu Nov 05, 2009 at 11:08:47 AM CST

I'm not sure who's at fault here (0.00 / 0)

Is it Senate Democrats for being obstinate, lacking creativity, and creating general gridlock on the basis of their incompetence?

Or is it Governor Paterson, whose insistence on cutting spending without increasing revenues has driven progressives away from him in droves?

We need to dump both.

"Never be afraid to stand with the minority when the minority is right, for the minority which is right will one day be the majority."


-William Jennings Bryan

---

by: BingChester @ Thu Nov 05, 2009 at 13:29:54 PM CST

You see (0.00 / 0)

Dan, you mostly seem reasonable, however you exhibit the lack of support from within the party. This is the most destructive part of the Democrats. I dont think that party loyalty is everything, but the whole espada monserrate thing speaks volumes about the problem with the Dems. The constant infighting, and railroading of fellow members is uncuth.

People, especially those in his own party, should applaud Gov Paterson. He has demonstrated unwavering leadership  by making the hardest choices when it comes to Albany budget bloat. He is a reformer and a true progressive, yet everyone in his party hates him.

Everyone is crying,boo hoo he is cutting this, and cutting that, oh well, we dont have the money, we deserve the very best we can afford and no more! If I cant afford it, i dont buy it. Do you?

Im a principled republican, and I support David Paterson. My party will have to come up with a phenomenal candidate, otherwise I will be supporting David Paterson.

---

by: chenangofreethinker @ Thu Nov 05, 2009 at 18:43:56 PM CST

DAP, Skelos and the Budget (4.00 / 1)

Dan,

Frankly I don't know exactly what you mean by a "bloated" NY budget.  I guess we need to toss grandma and grandpa under the bus and give them Mississippi like health care -- and while we are at it let's get rid of any health care for kids.

I am not cavalierly using Mississippi as an example because early in Pataki's first term he kept trying to figure out how to reduce NY's public higher education budget so that it reflected the level of support given in the South.  

The collapse of the US economy begins with the ascendancy of Sun Belt Ronnie Reagan's voodoo economic theory -- namely that if you cut taxes for the mega-rich well those bucks flow downward.  Thus began the concentration of wealth among the upper 1%, the wholesale export of jobs overseas and the steady erosion of wages until they've reached a stagnant rate today.

A full-blow transition to Republican voodoo economics will poorly serve NY in the short, immediate and long term  -- in fact we'll turn into a Californicated disaster area.  Last but not least, Bruno, Skelos, Libous and Pataki bear 2/3rds of the responsibility for how we got here -- so  going back to those times will be an unmitigated disaster.  

---

by: ElPocho @ Thu Nov 05, 2009 at 22:40:21 PM CST

The bloated budget (0.00 / 0)

This year we faced the worst economic time since at least 1982 and possible 1932.  We also have a mandate to balance the budget.  Yet in March the state passed a budget that was almost 10% larger than last year's.  The fact that we are now over $3 billion short in revenues should come as no surprise -- even the federal stimulus money wasn't going to make up all the difference.

There are two main reasons we got into this mess.  One is the preponderance of public authority debt, something Robert Moses learned to use to his advantage decades ago, and for which we are still suffering, primarily because nobody has bothered to do anything about.  (Yes, I have ideas, but they would take too long to put into this post.)  On top of that, Governor Cuomo allowed the MTA to issue bonds to cover operating expenses rather than for capital improvements.

The second reason for the bloated budget is that Governor Pataki (along with Assembly Speaker Silver and Senate Majority Leader Bruno) let Blue Cross/Blue Shield and other nonprofits convert to for-profit status; in order to do so they had to pay three years' back taxes to the state, and that's how he pretended to balance the budget while letting it explode.

---

by: Dan Jacoby @ Fri Nov 06, 2009 at 10:44:20 AM CST

[ Parent ]