The following is from the NY Daily News:
Eliot Spitzer may have talked the talk, but Gov. Cuomo showed New Yorkers he’s the true steamroller.
Cuomo in his first three months in office has used a mix of charm and threats to get the notoriously spendthrift Legislature to bend to his will.
It was Nelson Rockefeller who used to talk of the importance of wining and dining lawmakers – while adding how every so often you have to take one out to the woodshed.
Cuomo in his first three months has excelled at the practice.
He invited lawmakers to the historic governor’s mansion. He called them on the phone to discuss the budget.
But when Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried publicly criticized a historic Medicaid deal, Cuomo and his team publicly dismissed him as an agent of the status quo.
Gottfried (D-Manhattan) quickly backed down in a contrite press release.
Cuomo also showed he can hold firm against those in his own party, many of whom wanted to extend a tax on millionaires that he rejected.
Spitzer repeatedly talked about how a good budget was better than an on-time budget. But when faced with a late budget his first year, Spitzer, the self-proclaimed “steamroller,” got rolled himself and allowed spending to soar.
Not Cuomo.
He made it clear he did not care if the lawmakers didn’t meet the April 1 deadline. If it was late, he warned, he’d simply stuff his cuts into an emergency spending bill and force the Legislature to vote for it or shut down government.
He traveled the state with his message, took to the Web, and had backing from a coalition of business interests who bankrolled an ad campaign in favor of his spending plan.
But perhaps his most inspired move was neutralizing the opposition that torpedoed so many past governors.
He got the powerful health care workers union and hospital associations to help craft – and then support – his $2.8billion Medicaid cut package.
And his decision not to fully back Mayor Bloomberg’s push to do away with the last in, first out layoff system for teachers is credited with keeping the city teachers union quiet on his proposed education cuts.
In the end, Cuomo got almost everything he sought in the budget and a boost for any 2016 presidential aspirations he might harbor. More importantly, he got everything he promised New Yorkers.
For its part, the Legislature got something it desperately needed after recent years of scandal and ineptitude: It looks functional.
For New Yorkers, after the follies of Spitzer and David Paterson, it’s just nice to have a steamroller that works.
(Source: NY Daily News)
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One Response
What do they mean, “Spitzer talked the talk”? Spitzer was prosecuting and putting Wall Streeters away for doing what caused the fall of Wall Street in 2008, before it became well known. That is the reason his tikkun was brought in public, so as to remove him from the scene. Cuomo is also a working public servant, but the jury is still out on how he will fare as Governor. I dont like that he made it his personal pet project to make toeva marriage legal. That is not the will of the majority of the people in any state in the union.