Post-Pataki
Like most New Yorkers, we’re ready to say goodbye to our Governor. Yes, we think his record of accomplishment is a poor one but that probably isn’t the worst of it. And while bad doesn’t begin to describe how badly state government’s actually working, things could be worse. It could be that nothing new is likely to happen anytime soon, though that’s not how we’re reading the tea leaves. No, after twelve tough years change is coming to state government and that, we think, will be George Pataki’s final legacy: as the guy who let things get so bad they finally HAD to start getting better.
In the past we’ve ventured the opinion our Governor’s lost his mind, evidenced among other things, by his belief that only vastly increased gambling can fund education in our state. Yes, we think there are better ways than that, and fairer ones than local property taxes. And while we’re not really sure his mind’s gone anywhere, it could just be that his organ of perspective isn’t working well. He does for instance, seem to hold the bizarre belief that one day he should be President of the United States. And he seems completely unfazed that no one else shares that view, an odd take we think, for someone who’s done so much to hobble his own state. And we are hobbling along in New York and yes, Spitzer was right when he compared a vast swath of the state to Appalachia. Not our swath right here, but he was right nonetheless. Not everything of course that’s not working is Pataki’s fault, but some portion is. We’re losing people and businesses, we’re the highest taxed state in the country and this year alone we’re spending $10 billion more than we’re taking in, on top of a $50 billion debt load that’s only getting worse. And for the past six years, state spending has been up 6.3% a year, way above the cost of living, while what it’s bought us is exactly no solutions to the big issues we face in providing for our health care, infrastructure, and educational needs.
One thing that’s certain is that nobody’s running on Pataki’s record and even his own party seems to be running from it at full tilt. GOP gubernatorial hopefuls John Faso and William Weld are two guys who seem to dislike each other almost as much as they do Pataki, and we predict much light summer reading involving each’s take on the other. Whether either’s loafers stand to gain much traction against Spitzer’s war elephant is something nobody’s betting on, and with good reason. People realize change is needed, just as it’s needed at the national level and for reasons that are in some ways similar. Because in both instances, people are clearly seeing government for what it sometimes becomes, the place where the public interest is sold outright, for the benefit of those in power and those their policies benefit. And people we think, are just fed up with accepting that as normal. It’s not normal, and neither is the number of lifelong Republicans we know who tell us they’re very happy to be able to vote for a candidate like Eliot Spitzer in November. That’s not just unusual, it’s a sure sign of an awakening that’s overdue.
Before Pataki, the operative phrase around Albany was often “status-Cuomo,” a government widely seen as strong on rhetoric and sometimes ideals but slow to move and often light on achievement. Pataki’s tenure and the political culture that’s evolved from it has a somewhat different cast, a variation on the “friends and family” theme. That’s a nice way of describing what’s amounted to government based on the sale of influence and a climate of barely concealed and sometimes outright corruption. Historians no doubt, will debate whether Pataki was or wasn’t “the best governor money could buy” as Albany scuttlebutt generally pegged it, sometimes with derision and sometimes with a friendly wink.
Closer to home though and in the local pork department, Pataki’s legacy in the Catskills will be a mixed bag. We’re happy of course that in his last budget he finally came through with funding for real capital improvements at Belleayre: Offsetting that historically was his killing of the Catskill Park Interpretive Center in Mt.Tremper, one of his first acts on taking office and something which has hurt us badly over the past decade. Between these two watermarks, benign neglect would probably be a fair description of state support for our region. Clearly, we lack the political mother’s milk to have rated more attention from Albany than we have. On the plus side though, we have benefited somewhat from initiatives supportive of local government statewide; They have received more attention in recent years than in the past, though in real terms state dollars moving in our direction have remained light. Were it not for our other pork vendors in the Senate and Assembly, these would have been leaner years indeed for our local municipalities.
Few things are less exciting or more necessary to consider than statewide governmental reform. We think that post-Pataki, that’s the agenda, Spitzer’s the guy to do it, and Albany’s climate is about to shift back to an axis that doesn’t wobble towards every whiff of money and influence. If that’s what’s in store, we all just might start to look at government differently than we’ve grown accustomed to.
BP