PlanetAlbany

New Year's prediction (updated Jan. 1)

No matter how shocked, shocked Gov. Paterson is at the rumor, or Speaker Silver casts doubt on it, they will wind up endorsing and enacting into law an income tax hike (last graf) on New Yorkers earning $750,000 and up. The Empire Center for New York State Policy will denounce the notion, and on Monday will unveil its own budget plan to save $30 billion over the next three years, no doubt containing many sound ideas. But, as Comptroller Tom DiNapoli helpfully points out, the state is broke. (Although his statement that all this "could have been avoided if New York had adopted a more realistic budget last April. Now we see the results. New York dropped the ball. The state’s New Year’s resolution must be to make better budget decisions" would carry more weight if he ever had the balls to, say, annoy the public-sector unions and other interest groups by endorsing specific cuts.)

 Anyway, even if the Legislature were to adopt some of the Empire Center's suggestions, it won't do nearly enough of them to close the multibillion-dollar gap, which will remain too large to borrow or b-s away. So, in this upcoming election year, they will tax the rich some more. You can take it to the bank.

Update: This prediction applies whether or not Wall Street bonuses come in higher than until recently had been anticipated. If higher, it will fuel popular appetite for taxing the rich. If lower, it will make the budget hole that much more cavernous and difficult to fill.

Cheerful New Year's post with choo-choos

Had enough bemoaning of state bankruptcy and corruption, and other woes home and abroad? Me too. I went down to meet someone in New York the Friday before Christmas, and we took in the magnificent Blake exhibit (now in its last week) and other treasures at the Morgan Library. I travelled down and back by train, and the service was pleasant (I got to the station early after a morning appointment and they let me take an earlier train), efficient and on time, as it was when a close relative and her husband went down after Christmas and were happy with the hotel featured on the Amtrak Web site. It's the only way to travel, as apparently recognized by Jerry Jennings and Jack McEneny, the former of whom was on my southbound train while the latter was on the late return trip. The riverside view is, of course, magnificent, and the Rensselaer station, with its great hall atop the parking garage, is a worthy modern addition to the region's infrastructure.

Joe Bruno is primarily responsible for that station, and for funding recent improvements on the line that have apparently improved Amtrak's timeliness. More improvements may be in the offing, as may be (also partly due, in a more problematic context, to the former Senate majority leader) an ethics reform bill. I concede the ample capacity of state leaders to bollix up these and other prospects, but it remains possible that they will not entirely do so. Happy New Year.

Fort Orange follies

The Albany Planning Board is now considering the Fort Orange Club's proposal to demolish two three-story, 19th-century buildings on Washington Avenue to expand a parking lot -- 20-odd years after a previous, similar act of vandalism by this Albany institution. (Thanks to the Times Union for its coverage, including those three links.) 

According to The New York Times, the club is about the last bastion of Republicans in Albany. This isn't going to do the party's reputation any good. The club's position has few defenders except for right-wing radio host Paul Vandenburgh, along with his sidekick and the club's lawyer Sal Ferlazzo from the eponymous firm which was at the center of the scandal involving lawyers who lined up public pensions they weren't entitled to. That isn't going to make the GOP seem any less whining and entitled. Since when did conservatives give up conserving anything?

The Saratoga writer Jim Kunstler, back when he wrote "The Geography of Nowhere" and other classics about land use and architecture, would have hung these guys out to dry. Now, he writes what seem to me overblown predictions about impending social collapse. But if he's right that peasants with pitchforks will soon start defenestrating Wall Street fat cats, around here they'll be heading for the Fort Orange Club.

Silver signals support for Cuomo

On his Talk 1300 radio show this morning, Fred Dicker asked Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver if he thinks Attorney General Andrew Cuomo will run for governor next year. "I do," Silver replied, adding "I think he thinks it's his opportunity." Asked if he would back Cuomo or incumbent Gov. David Paterson, Silver said he wants to do what's best for the Democratic Party, meaning getting "the strongest ticket possible" with "the strongest candidate for governor."

While not a direct endorsement, that sure sounds like Silver will be endorsing Cuomo if Cuomo runs against Paterson and if polls continue to show the attorney general running well ahead of the incumbent governor.

That isn't a propitious omen for next year's budget negotiations if Paterson remains committed to seeking re-election -- a commitment Silver seems to be trying to undermine.

Racing to crazy

It doesn't seem like the New York Racing Association can win its dispute with state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, who wants to audit it -- a request that is going to seem entirely reasonable to most editorial writers and any citizen who may be paying attention. "What's NYRA got to hide?" is going to be the obvious question, with the high salaries of its executives one likely motive for the stonewall.

But then a few years ago it didn't seem like NYRA could win a new franchise from the state, or that anyone would take its claim seriously to own the three race tracks it runs. Yet it managed to parlay giving up that ownership claim into winning a new generation of running horse racing, thanks to a cave-in by then Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Then-Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno held out a little longer (last item), but ultimately gave way, and the bill renewing NYRA's franchise passed in February 2008. Spitzer was out of town that night, staying at Washington's Mayflower Hotel in the rendezvous with prostitute Ashley Dupre that forced his resignation the next month.

Bruno was convicted last month of two corruption counts both involving his relationship with Jared Abbruzzese, a businessman involved with Empire Racing Associates, which bid against NYRA for the franchise. Federal prosecutors got involved after the state Lobbying Commission investigated flights Abbruzzese provided for Bruno after then-Gov. George Pataki cut off his access to state helicopters. The Lobbying Commission also looked into flights provided to Spitzer by Richard Fields, who gave so much money to Spitzer's campaign that he had to take some of it back after the election, and who was a principal in another bidder for the franchise, Excelsior Racing Associates. (Spitzer and Bruno also had helicopter issues, leading to Troopergate.)

Eight years ago, the state government's main reaction to the 9/11 attacks was the pathetically inadequate one of seeking to raise revenue by permitting the installation of video lottery terminals at NYRA's Aqueduct track in Queens. They have yet to be installed there, and there is no timetable to do so, because successive governors and legislative leaders have not reached an agreement to make it happen. You could never get a straight answer from Pataki, Spitzer, Bruno, NYRA or any of the other players, including the ones currently in office, about what was holding it up.

Casino advocates say New York needs a constitutional amendment to permit them, and rinky-dink VLTs at Aqueduct will not generate enough revenue. Gambling opponents also have a point when they say it is a lousy basis for economic development.

But NYRA is right about this much: They were supposed to be getting revenue from Aqueduct VLTs by now, and it is a glaring failure of state government that they -- along with the state and the Queens community -- are getting nothing. How much of of this is due to corruption, how much to incompetence, idleness or some other cause, can be debated. But the failure is as indefensible as NYRA's continued stonewalling.

Catch-22 updated

Female soldiers in Iraq face court-martial and possible jail time if they get pregnant, even if they are deployed with their husbands. My daughter, an Army specialist who just returned from Afghanistan, says the policy does not apply there. Apparently it's the brainwave of the U.S. Army general in command in northern Iraq. My daughter married an Afghanistan veteran in February, and they are expecting to be deployed again next year, they hope together. When the Army deploys husbands and wives together, they provide them with private quarters. So ... this is nuts.

NY senators don't do potholes (updated)

So the health-care legislation moving through Congress will cost New York well over $1 billion per year, according to Gov. Paterson. I guess NY Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillbrand aren't as savvy as colleagues Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson, who demanded and got hundreds of millions for their states in exchange for their votes. In fact Schumer, who apparently wants to be Senate majority leader, was in the thick of negotiating Nelson's giveaway. Hey, there's no fiscal problem here, right?

Meanwhile, the alleged Roman Catholic moderate upstate congressman Scott Murphy, who says he voted against the bill because it doesn't cut costs enough, also voted against the Stupak amendment, which would limit its expenditures on abortion. (The amendment passed the House with the support of 64 Democrats, none of them from New York.) On that issue he, Schumer and Gillibrand are in agreement -- and so is Paterson, who has not proposed cutting New York's funding of Medicaid abortion or embryonic stem cell research: No matter what the cost, the pro-choice lobby must be satisfied.

Update: From the heading of a taxpayer-funded mailer which Murphy sent to constituents last week: "This bill  doesn't do enough to control costs, which is why I voted against it."

Tie tax break to charter expansion

Today's Daily News editorial says New York state needs to adopt specified reforms by next month, including approval of 200 more charter schools, in order to get $700 million in federal aid. Since the proliferation of charters has been bad news for Catholic parochial schools, any such approval should be combined with passage of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer's proposal for a tuition tax deduction of up to $1,000 -- which would barely put a dent in that $700 million.

Paterson not dead yet

Gov. Paterson's continued interest in re-election presents a problem for Andrew Cuomo, who has yet to say anything meaningful about the state's fiscal crisis and whose special-interest supporters don't want him to. Cuomo has said a lot about a bill he supported that was passed into law this year and supposedly eases the way for local government consolidation -- not a bad idea, but not one that is going to make any kind of dent in the deficit.

Cuomo has been a bit of a bipartisan golden boy since his Troopergate report in 2007 blasting the Spitzer administration. He did a good job with it, but Joe Bruno's conviction this month takes some of the bloom off that already fading rose, and raises the question of what is the rationale for a Cuomo candidacy? Not being David Paterson may not be enough.

As for Paterson, whose poll numbers have been improving but are still well behind Cuomo's, he can only take born-again budget-cutting so far. Sure, he's going to need to do lots more of it next year, but at some point he is also going to have to fall in behind what is going to be Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's push for an income tax increase on the rich. The best bet is new top brackets kicking in at income levels of $750,000 and $1 million -- with no sunset provision, and removing the sunset from last year's increase. If Paterson gives Silver that, they should be able to agree on cuts to go with it, and roll over the dysfunctional Senate to get it done.

Less is less for news biz

When we watch local TV news my wife and I  tend to watch WNYT Channel 13, but apparently much fewer people are joining us. The TU story cites possible causes including the layoff of Lydia Kulbida, and I agree she made more of an impact than whoever they've brought in lately to co-anchor with Jim Kambrich.  But it's the layoffs of other people, most of whose names we've forgotten if we ever knew them, that really hurt. WNYT's Steve Baboulis may be right that Nielsen erred this time, but the overall trend is for viewers to tune in less news.

We were watching a weekend evening newscast recently and it occurred to me there were no -- zero -- local news reports. I hope someone had called in sick or something, because it's hard to see how you can schedule a newscast without any reporters. I remember a generation ago showing up to events where radio reporters were in regular attendance. You hardly ever see one these days, and of course there are far fewer newspaper reporters at places like the LCA in the Capitol and gathering local news for local papers.

There are some new outlets, like the blogs and Time Warner's Capital News 9, but in general there is less news coverage, and much less professional news coverage, as organizations respond to reduced ratings and advertising by shedding staff. That obviously sets up a vicious cycle which gives the public less and less reason to pay attention.