On Andrew Cuomo, the state budget, and systemic change for New York

by: Adama D. Brown

Mon Mar 28, 2011 at 04:14:29 AM EDT

I voted for Andrew Cuomo last November, I voted for him, I rooted for him, and I did everything I though could reasonably help his campaign. I didn't extensively fundraise for him (although I wish I had) nor did I canvass for him beyond the bare minimum, being occupied with the failed State Senate campaign in my district. But nonetheless, I fully supported him.

And not out of simple party loyalty, or herd behavior--my county went for Carl Paladino (shudder) by an almost two to one margin. Nor did I vote for Cuomo due to the fact that Carl Paladino was an absolute lunatic, even though I know things which would appall you about dear old Carl that are not public information and probably never will be. Nor did I vote for Cuomo because I believe him to be the ideal man, governor, or political candidate. I've been involved in politics long enough to know that there is no such thing for any of the above.  

No, I voted for Andrew Cuomo because I firmly believe that he  represents the best chance that this state has within the next ten or twenty years of climbing out of the cesspool that we're in of corruption and incompetence.

Governor Cuomo is entirely right that we need to cut the state budget. We've spent too many years simply trying to patch the problem, pulling funds from here or a special excise tax from there in order to create the illusion of balance. The most recent incarnations are the absurdly bad ideas of trying to mandate a change to the hideous new yellow and blue license plates, or requiring license plates for bicycles, in order to "fix" a budget gap that numbers in the billions of dollars. But this approach has been around a long time, and has long since worn out it's welcome with the public. They've cottoned to the fact that the state budget process amounts to a slight of hand act from whoever can muster the votes to get it passed.

And for sixteen years, the budget has continuously increased. Not only is this unsustainable in the long term, it's unsustainable in the short term, like a cancerous tumor growing inside someone's body. We have never dealt with the gradual creeping growth of state spending.

It's onto this stage that the Governor's budget comes, with unprecedented billions in cuts . And in all candor (again, perhaps too much candor, or at least more than I might employ when not under the influence of foreign chemicals), while I agree with the goal, I am not overly happy with the cuts to education and healthcare in either the Governor's budget or the adopted version. Particularly with regard to education. While you can make the argument that Medicare is a target of fraudsters, and therefore needs to scrutinize and be scrutinized when it comes to virtually every dime of spending, there is no such claim for education. No one is sneaking into eighth grade; there are no fraudulent teachers filing bills with the state. Education is one of the few areas where one can say without either hesitation or uncertainty that it is an investment in the future of our state, our nation, and the world.

I will fully admit: part of my perspective comes from the fact that one of my best friends in the world, someone I love to pieces and would do anything for, is a schoolteacher right here in upstate New York. She is everything that a teacher should be; I know that she would do anything within her power to help her students learn, grow, and mature. She puts in far too many hours at work--in fact, she recently gave her loved ones (myself included) a health scare by fainting due to high blood pressure. But even without her insight into the educational system, I would still know this: New York has one of the finest higher educational systems in the United States. I derive a great deal of satisfaction knowing that my friend the teacher, who got her masters degree at SUNY Geneseo, has an education the equal of any that you'd find at a private university, anywhere in the country. New York's state university system is, and deserves to be, one of our great prides, and should not be sacrificed. SUNY Geneseo turns out some of the best education professionals that this country has--and that is just one of the many branches of the SUNY system.

I don't relate this to lionize teachers--they are not all as dedicated as my dear friend. They aren't all in it for the kids, or for the cause. Some of them are there for the paycheck, it's true. And some of them deserve to be fired. But this is a job which must be accomplished with a scalpel, not a chainsaw. A $1.2 billion dollar cut in education affects not just the bad teachers, but the good ones too. Last year, my friend was laid off from her job because the money for her program--which is federally funded--was taken over by the state, and it was only through luck that she got her job back.

So if we agree that a drastic revision of the budget is needed, but we're not talking about the state's two biggest expenses--education and healthcare--then what are we talking about? Or rather what should we be talking about?

In short: "leftovers."

If you've ever been backstage at a theatre, you might understand what I mean. "Temporary" walls, scenery, etcetera, like our "temporary" shifts of funds or "temporary" taxes," litter the environment. Laws passed to fix some small, momentary problem remain on the books forever. The problem is not education. The problem is not healthcare. The problem is a systemic infection in the way that the State of New York does business, drawn from that same impulse which suggests mandating license plate changes to try and fix the state budget. It is, in short, the accumulated weight of decades of quick fixes.

How many public benefit corporations, also known as public authorities, does New York have? Most people would be shocked to know that the answer is about six hundred and forty. I say "about," because we don't really know how many there are--we've lost count since we started creating them. These organizations draw from public money, and can issue state-backed debt, but are not fully accountable to the state government. The Port Authority and Thruway Authority are the most well known, but we also have the recently shut down "Overcoat Development Corporation," which was originally created to lure a clothing manufacturer to New York from Indiana. Or the Olympic Regional Development Authority, which is--still--maintaining the facilities used for the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. Each of these was intended for a simple, limited purpose, but kept going long after that purpose was gone. Until finally, some 90% of New York's outstanding public debt in recent years has been the result of these PBCs. And they're not the only problem, but one major symptom.

The state budget doesn't need to be trimmed. It doesn't even need to be chainsawed. It needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, gone over line by line to insure that people are getting their money's worth. Whether someone believes in "big government" or "small government," they rarely are likely to be dissatisfied with efficent government, something giving them good value for their money.

I think that, all other things aside--the future, ambition, rhetoric, politics--I am of the opinion that Andrew Cuomo is a true believer, that he is someone who recognizes New York needs a fundamental change in order to get back on track. I sincerely hope that he can accomplish that before he gets dragged down into the system and smothered by it, the way that David Paterson and Eliot Spitzer did. The collective inertia of New York State's legislature and all those who benefit from the status quo is considerable. A landslide election gives one a certain number of options--but those options don't last forever.