Pataki: No Debt, No Presidential Run

I suspect the governor may be being coy and waiting for the GOP light weights to self-immolate. He volunteered that you “never say never” without prompting.

Pataki and Rudy are the washed up OLD” New York Republicans and Donald “EGO MANIC” Trump is the NEW WAIVE 21st century Nelson Rockefeller Republican Rich and now a social conservative.

I still prefer “WATSON” for President

Before there was the “Oracle at Delphi” there was Count Vampire J. Machiavelli

VJ Machiavelli
http://www.VJMachiavelli.blogspot.com
The Legislative Budget is Too Damn High

Nick, somebody must of cared — because he got elected THREE times and bounced Padre Cuomo into retirement. As for the current Governor, I hope the honeymoon last.

Sorry GOP_NYC, but the following facts get in the way of your fanboy salute to our RINO Gov. Pataki:

(1) In 1994 there was a tsunami of GOP victories across the country, which Pataki rode over Mario Cuomo by the slimmest of margins. Does the name “Gingrich” ring any bells? Also remember that Cuomo was at the end of a 12 year run and had collected so many barnacles that even his fellow Democrats were aching for a change.

(2) Pataki did NOT lower taxes on New Yorkers. He lowered state-level rates by merely pushing the costs of government down to the counties and towns thru endless mandates, forcing them to raise their sales and property taxes in turn. It would be hard to find a taxpayer in NY who actually saw their taxes decline during the Pataki years. We still enjoy the highest combined tax rates in the U.S., the highest property taxes, the highest electricity rates due to excise taxes, etc.

(3) Charter schools? Where? Notwithstanding all the hoopla, by the end of the Pataki years they accounted for less than 1 percent of school kids in NY. Big whoop. The fact is Pataki did nothing — zip — to loosen the Silver-appointed Regents (translation: unions) grip on 99 percent of kids’ educations in NY. Not only was he not successful, he didn’t even try. Reverse the Triborough Amendment? Don’t even utter the words. Even worse, the sham school budget votes that occur each May got worse, with “contingency” budgets designed to ensure the unions get whatever they want every year and robbing voters of any real choice. Pataki was Sheldon Silver’s bitch year after year on anything SEIU and the teachers unions wanted.

(4) Welfare reform? Surely you jest. Pataki oversaw the greatest expansion of Medicaid and other welfare programs in the history of NY. We are the welfare capital of America, outspending even California by 1/3.

(5) 800,000 private sector jobs that “came to” NY? In Upstate NY we LOST a net 300,000 jobs and close to 1 million population, with cities like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, the Southern Tier, the Adirondacks (heck, pretty much everywhere other than Albany County) losing tens of thousands of private sector job.

(6) Pataki’s judge picks were a delightful combination of liberals and hacks, giving us yet another lost opportunity for meaningful controls over the growth of state government and spending. See, the education spending lawsuits.

I’m a Republican, and Pataki can claim one thing — destroying the GOP brand and turning “GOP” into “Democrat-Lite”. He’s not alone, though, since Joe Bruno and the GOP Senators were willing partners in the crime. And you wonder why Bruno is now a convicted felon and Pataki is an embarrassed wannabe national figure?

Barban is what we call a “100 percenter”; he’s one of those guys that makes the GOP such an effective and powerful party — NOT — in New York State politics. He’ll get red in the face, his eyes will bulge, and the old caroitd artery will be bulging outta his neck like so much it will look like the Mississippi River on a map of Louisiana. His way or the highway and never the twain shall meet (and certainly none of the candidates actually elected.) But they all get to do the really important work of sniping on message boards and calling talk radio and saying this Republican or than Republican is a RINO because they didn’t do “X” or “Y” of the CATO Institute or Grover Norquist’s playbook. Of course, they’ve never actually participated in an actual campaign and they’ve certainly never actually gotten anybody elected; that would take real work and — horrors!!! — maybe some slight level of compromise.

You see, with guys like Barban, GOVERNOR Ronald Reagan never would have become PRESIDENT Reagan because, among other things, Reagan raised taxes as governor of California and signed a bill legalizing therapeutic abortion in California. And CATO and Grover would have eviscerated him for (1) protecting Harley Davidson from unfair competition from Kawasaki and (2) giving America is biggest tax INCREASE in history in 1983′s TEFRA.

Gee, that’s a new one: Newt Gingrich taking credit for the election of a Republican governor in New York against an incumbet Democrat icon. (I’m sure he’ll use that in his campaign advertising, “I’m Newt. I beat Mario Cuomo, even though I wasn’t even on the ballot!”. His opponents will no doubt point out how a couple of NewYork Republicans didn’t even sign the Contract with America.)

And New York really had NO mandates at the state level before Governor Pataki. Is that what you’re saying? Because unless that’s true, a tax rate reduction (from 7.85% in 1992 to 5.9% in 2009 for the poorest working New Yorkers is a,umn, tax cut. (In fact, the poorest working New Yorkers were mostly exempted from tax entirely under Pataki and middle class and wealthy New Yorkers had substantial cuts in income tax.) If you have a problem with your local elected officials, throw them out, as has already happened with a number of counties in New York.

On charter schools, as of 2008, there were 15,000 school children in NYS charter schools, with more in the pipeline. Is it a small number relative to the number wanted? Yes. But I’ll remind you that Governor Pataki had to basically “bribe” the UFT-owned state legislature to pass the bill by holding up their pay raise until they passed charter schools. You also overlook that it broke the back of the UFT monopoly and that reforms initiated in charter schools are now moving into the public system. You also forget that Governor Pataki’s move to education reform in NYS triggered an environment where foundations created non-charter schools that serve even more students. Lastly, Governor Pataki got the legislation that gave NYC mayoral control over public schools, giving a tremendous boost to the quality of the NYC public schools.

And nice gumming of statistics on your welfare figures. While you point out that NYS has 1/3 higher welfare costs, you fail to poiint out that California has nearly DOUBLE New York’s population! (37 million versus 19 million) Rather disingenuous, don’t’ you think? It tends to bring into question the rest of your “statistics.”

Being a native of Western New York, I know better than most how hard-hit New York’s upstate region has been hit by job losses. But the BLS says that 800,000 new private sector jobs were created in New York. Most of the jobs in Western New York that were lost at the Bethlehem Steel works and at the Ford and GM plants were jobs lost to NAFTA and the WTO, not state policies. Those jobs didn’t go to another state, they went to Mexico and Canada.

I didn’t follow the judgeships, so I’m not prepared to say. But you try finding a conservative judge who graduated from one of the nation’s “elite” law schools. Or even from Syracuse, Buffalo, or Albany Law School. Lotsa luck with that; let me know how you do.

We all have things we would like to see in New York politics, but New York isn’t South Carolina or even Virginia. Its NEW YORK — heavily ethnic, heavily “Blue” State voters in nearly every profession and at virtually all of our univerisities. “Democrat Lite” isn’t what’s desired, but Republican power certainly is. Sometimes, guy like you conflate politics with religion, imposing litmust tests that no SUCCESSFUL candidate in New York can possibly adhere to, even if he is sympathetic to them.

Remember Bismarck. “Politics is the art of the possible.” You can’t do anything if you’re sitting at home thinking of what might have been had you won.

Making excuses to justify caving to Sheldon Silver, deals with SEIU, and pushing mandates on local officials who are helpless to push back are all pathetic actions of a desperate and ideologically rudderless politician. Pataki and his fanboys so craved re-election and setting the stage for a national run that they threw the GOP base voters under the bus. Economic development? Gargano was never sighted west of route 87 in 12 years, while Pataki turned econ development programs like Empire Zones turn into legalized bribery mills for GOP donors. GOP officials who objected were crushed by Pataki’s thug-like enforcers, backed-up by Bruno’s enablers in the state senate. Mike Long joined the band so long as his dragon-lady daughter was guaranteed a job on the 2nd Floor, a classic sell-out by a hack.

My point, gop_nyc, is that the GOP is a shambles in NY because 12 years of Pataki’s maneuverings basically destroyed the GOP brand in NY, pushed many activists out of the Party, disspirited the donor base, and pushed the Business Council and many other pro-business groups into accommodationist mode (the Bus Council in particular turning into a neutered and politically pathetic body). You could argue (and you do) that “the demographics made Pataki do it” but the Ronald Reagan you cited did, in fact, win in NY even though he presented a conservative platform.

I understand. The Dems have them too. Ideology drives the polarization and perhaps brings the cash in too, but pragmatism wins elections and permits effective governing. We agree.