Cuomo Comes Through in the Clutch

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Albany Strikes Budget Accord to Cut Spending,” describes a striking first success for the new Governor, Andrew Cuomo. In additon to meeting the deadline for a new budget, the first time that has been achieved in five years — and sometimes they’ve been stunningly late for months or more — he reduced spending on Medicare, stood up to the health lobbyists and unions, and did it all without any major new taxes.

Albany has been criticized in the past for its dysfunction, but here’s hoping that Governor Cuomo is and will continue to be making a difference. I must admit I used to be more of a fan of his father but have been willingly to give him a chance and am suitably impressed. The Governor was also clever enough to lock in some of the new changes in the budget for two years and will thus avoid relitigating the issues again in just 12 months.

Andrew Cuomo employed a clever pressure point to the normally recalcitrant legislature, threatening to re-introduce his proposals as emergency legislation if the budget was not passed on time, leading either to passage without any concessions or a shutdown of the state government. Legislators clearly did not want to be responsible for the latter.