Governor Wall Street

A Wall Street Journal editorial this morning slaps New York's new mandates for autism insurance overage. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, it says, "has built a reputation in his first year as Governor as a rational and thoughtful Democrat, but he sometimes undermines that image when politically convenient. His predecessor, David Patterson [sic], vetoed an autism mandate because it was too costly. For the sake of New York, let's hope Mr. Cuomo's reversal isn't becoming a habit."

That looks like a shot across Cuomo's bow warning him not to change course and back an extension of the state's millionaire's tax, which is scheduled to sunset at the end of this year. There's no sign that Cuomo will support extending the tax, despite the obvious need and justification for it. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver says he hopes to change the governor's mind in next year's budget negotiations, but Silver lost his best leverage when he surrendered the issue in the last round of budget talks. Come January, Cuomo can argue it would hurt business to raise taxes. The better argument is to act this year to prevent the tax cut from going through, and pass serious mandate relief at the same time to cut costs for local governments and schools.

This being Albany, though, that's unlikely to happen. Instead, the state's leaders talk about mandate relief while in fact enacting new costly mandates, and talk about representing the people while providing tax relief only for the richest among them. No wonder the governor tried to evict those Occupy Albany protestors.

Comments

[Brian]

That's Cuomo for you. Keep piling the mandates on counties, municipalities and school districts (so he can claim to 'care' about issue x) but restrict their ability to pay for said mandates (so he can claim to have kept your taxes down).