This program is a production of WAMC News and is made possible with funds provided by the State University of New York College at Newport.
From Albany, this is the legislative gazette, a weekly news magazine examining the activities of state government.
Your host is political scientist and syndicated columnist, Dr. Alan Chartock of the State University.
In this week's edition of the legislative gazette, we'll usher in the new legislative year with a look at Governor Mario Cuomo's state of the state message and reaction to it.
Happy New Year! No? We're not nearly two weeks late with that greeting because in Albany, the new year begins only when the legislature returns to be sworn in, planned strategy, and hear Governor Mario Cuomo deliver his state of the state message.
Ric Lepp-Kowski has a report.
It should have been done last year, but better late than never. That's the Republican response to the $1.2 billion tax cut proposed by Governor Cuomo in his state of the state address on Wednesday.
The governor's plan would reduce the maximum income tax rate from 10 to 9 percent, increase standard deductions and personal exemptions, and eliminate state income taxes for those living below the poverty line.
Senate Republicans passed a $1.5 billion tax cut planned last session, but at that time, the governor said we'll have to wait to see just how much money the state has.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman John Markey says he's happy about the governor's change of heart, but he says taxes should have been and could have been cut last session.
We had clearly identified the, by way, of prudent revenue estimates. We worked and are assisted by an econometric model developed by Dr. Klein who won the Nobel Prize.
We make very, very prudent and take very great care in estimating revenues, and there were clearly there.
There were clearly there throughout the entire year, and we had passed the bill, and the bill was available for passage even as late as a month ago.
And it clearly wasn't on a political timetable because of the election.
Yes.
The governor also proposed a fiscal reform package designed to reduce the state's accumulated debt, thus reducing the amount of interest the state pays out each year.
The Republican controller Edward Regan, and the Republican majority in the Senate, have been calling for fiscal reform for three years, and Regan says that pressure on the governor has finally paid off.
The reform proposal includes three parts, the first providing more than $300 million in the upcoming budget to reduce the state's roll over debt, or debt that is carried over from one year to the next.
Finally, the governor proposes a constitutional amendment that would prohibit the state from borrowing to pay the debt secured the previous fiscal year.
That would bring the state books in compliance with general acceptable accounting practices, or a gap budget as it's called.
And thirdly, the governor and controller were worked together on an omnibus financial reform bill that would require gap balancing in the interim before the constitutional amendment is passed by the voters.
The objective to reduce the state's spring borrowing by $2.3 billion dollars.
Controller Regan.
We've had 25 years of deficits, 25 years of roll over, 25 years of heavy borrowing, and today after three years of my regime, today you heard a break with that pattern in New York State.
The governor essentially said all the bills that we now get we will pay on time, and those bills that were not paid on time in past years, we will over a period of years of bringing them up to date.
Governor Cuomo says fiscal reform might not be very popular politically because it means spending money for reform rather than services or goodies as the governor called them.
Cuomo said last year alone the state spent $257 million in interest, money spent without benefiting anyone but the bankers.
Governor Cuomo, a Democrat and controller Regan, a Republican in the past have been at odds politically, but on the day after the governor's state of the state, the governor and the controller stood side by side together, explaining the benefits of fiscal reform.
The benefits in the future would be reduced expenditures and a possibility of further tax cuts, and we have to get the public to understand that in the long run, this is good for everybody.
Each 100 million of roll back, deficit reduction, borrowing reduction is a one time expenditure, but the 7 million of interest associated with that is a repeated revenue.
When you're through with the 2.3 billion or whatever the number is, in rollbacks, that will be it.
It won't be any more, but the interest savings will in order to future generations in this state add an infinitum, and of course, the credit rating start to come up.
The interest savings start all over the place, and immediately sell that there's a tough course. If you spent more than you raised at one point, you want to do the right thing, you have to reverse that policy, but we will not be raising more than we will be spending for very long because pretty soon all the savings start to catch up and surpass that spending.
Republicans in the legislature have been calling for tax cuts and fiscal reform for many years, and the application of pressure has finally paid off.
But controller Reagan says the past few years have been a healthy time of constructive debate. Senate Majority Leader Warren Anderson, however, gets right to the point. He says Governor Mario Cuomo is becoming more moderate.
Well, I don't think he wants a Republican nomination, but he certainly is following our lead as did Governor Kerry.
There hadn't been a tax cut in this state in the last 10 years that the Republican Senate hasn't initiated.
At the Capitol, I'm Rick Klubkowski.
There was another item of business this week, the naming of leadership positions and committee chairs. Bill Graulty reports.
On the Senate side, there were a number of changes with nearly half of the committees receiving new chairman. The reason for much of the shifting was a decision by veteran Senator Douglas Barclay, who retired.
Senator Jay Rollison was elevated to the position of assistant majority leader. Barclay also headed the powerful Judiciary Committee. His replacement is John Dunn, who had headed the Environment Committee.
Senator Hugh Farley winds up heading environment. Senator Ronald Stafford wanted Judiciary, but he remains as chairman of the Codes Committee and is in a new leadership position of chairman of the majority conference operations.
Other changes include Senator Joseph Runo going from consumer protection to insurance. Senator Ralph Moreno taking over for Rollison as chairman of the banking committee.
The returning Christopher Mega to succeed Marino at crime and corrections. Some key positions remain unchanged, of course, including perhaps most significant Dale Volcker staying on as chairman of the Energy Committee.
On the assembly side, the most significant change involved the Assembly's Energy Committee.
Assemblyman William Hoyt of Buffalo was named to replace the defeated Angelo Arasio, both Volcker and Hoyt are from Buffalo, and though there are members of different parties,
speculation is there'll be of one mind in trying to protect upstate hydroelectric power from attempts to divert some of it down state.
In Albany, I'm Bill Graulty.
For the past two weeks, Fred Dicker has been absent from this program. He's been away checking out the situation in Central America among other assignments.
What would bring him back from an assignment like that? Why the return of the legislature to Albany, of course. That and the belief held by some that for a time anyway, the universe revolves around that ornate building at the top of the hill.
So here he is, the astrologer of the assembly, that sign reader of the Senate, that guru of things gubernatorial, Fred Dicker of the New York Post.
Governor Cuomo's third state of the state message last week should have been what we in the news business call a blockbuster, a real headline generator in the subject of a whirlwind of comment.
But it wasn't, largely because the governor and his key aides decided to leak the messages of three major components well before Cuomo's 35-minute address was delivered in a packed assembly chamber.
Strategically, the governor's leak at all first decision may have been designed to give key lawmakers some additional time to reflect on his major proposals.
After all, reflection could produce the politically satisfying realization that the governor's main proposals, a large tax cut, a mass of housing construction plan, and a 10% welfare increase are virtually certain to go over well with the voters.
No politician, of course, wants to be against tax hikes, and most politicians, especially those from urban areas, know that a shortage of affordable housing is a growing concern with the voters.
On first blush, the welfare hike may not be so popular in conservative quarters.
But Cuomo's proposal for a 10% hike in welfare benefits is less than half the amount sought by New York Archbishop John O'Connor, whose political cloud is considerable.
Most politicians would prefer to tangle with Cuomo any day than tangle with the Archbishop.
The reaction to Cuomo's three major proposals from both sides of the political aisle was relatively restrained last week.
But political perspectives, of course, don't always have a lot to do with the real world.
So in the interest of providing some real world perspectives on Cuomo's third state of the state message, here are some critical views of my own.
The governor's tax cut proposal, Harold, is a big gift to the middle class, was inevitable, given the buoyant performance of the national economy during the past 12 months.
Ironically, the economic recovery for which President Reagan and his massive deficits have been given the credit have bailed out a Democratic governor who raised state taxes by $1 billion just two years ago.
With the state treasury bulging with money, Cuomo had to either recommend massive new spending programs or give some of the funds back to the voters.
Given today's political climate, he intelligently chose the latter. Cuomo did, of course, choose a huge new spending program when he recommended that a $3.5 B-boy billion be spent to construct new low and middle class housing.
The kicker here, however, is that Cuomo plans to fund the projects by mortising the state's financial future to the sale of bonds issued by several state agencies.
That's an old Rockefeller scheme, by now and pay later. And it's certainly an odds with Cuomo's claimed, pays your go philosophy, spelled out in the state of the state address.
Now, no one familiar with the reality of New York City would argue against the need for affordable housing.
The question here is, should New York be paying for it, and if it should, are long-term bonds the way to do it?
I'm not going to try and answer all of those questions now, but I will say this.
Where is it written that New York State must provide affordable housing for everyone who wants it, especially when the housing is designed for some of the least productive among us?
I'm not being cold-hearted here, just realistic. You know, there's plenty of affordable housing available in other parts of the country, and there may be some good jobs available as well.
For those willing to work in those locations.
Finally, I hate to get involved in arguments about welfare benefits, but there's no doubt that the American system of welfare is socially corrosive, both in terms of its destruction of a family, and its inculcation of dependency is a rewarding way of life.
You can be poor and live in dignity. I found that out earlier this month in Nicaragua. The benefits the poor in New York receive would be the envy of much of the underdeveloped world.
I just wish politicians would bite the bullet, speak the truth, and come up with some alternatives to simply handing more money to a system everyone agrees has failed.
When Estes, Iyapthamanyana, a story for a dicker, Deila Post, and the New York.
There are many ways to view a governor's state of the state speech. You can talk to administration people or legislators or seasoned journalists.
Another point of view and a very interesting one at that comes from Jim Ryan, one of Albany's most respected lawyer lobbyists.
We listened together to the state of the state message, and I'd like to start there and ask you this. What really, if the lobbyists, if we're sitting in your living room and I'm saying to you, Jim, what are the lobbyists looking at in a speech like the state of the state message?
I take it there looking to see what's going to happen to their clients.
Certainly that. I think we also look at broader picture. I think when we're talking about lobbyists, there really are different approaches to lobbyists.
I think there are those individuals representing a single client, and clearly I think they are more interested in the specifics of the speech, the specifics of the budget on what's going to happen to their particular client.
Our firm and the other several firms law firms that represent multiple clients, I think certainly are also concerned with that, but also concerned with what the general overall agenda that the governor has established.
I think when we hear this, I mentioned right after the speech, that I think what the governor is saying is that New York, for the first time in several years, has money that they're able to utilize both for tax reduction and for new government initiatives, the establishment and enhancement of existing programs.
We represent a number of clients who really are looking for revisions and changes in the way the tax law works. Maybe you've domestically referred to, or maybe not so euphemistically, by those who don't appreciate them as loopholes.
Others as we really view it as a change in the tax structure. We have a number of clients that would like to come in, represent the Greater New York Hospital Association, certainly looking for an improvement in the cash flow and a health care field.
We have a necessarily enhancement or change in the program, but when we find that the government has additional funds and that governor is proposing major new programs, we think it was an opportunity for us to come forward on behalf of some of those clients and hopefully participate in some of the law just.
Now after a speech of this kind, I take it, you're going to go back to your office, or you went back to your office and there are telephone calls from people who heard the speech who know, who have a sense that they're impacted.
And they want to talk to you about, they want you to hold their hand, they want you to tell you what it means, does that happen?
Oh, absolutely. And one of the things immediately after the speech, those clients whose interest are specifically addressed, I mean we do call and tell them that it's there.
We didn't, the governor didn't particularly mention it, but he was talking, we represent mobile oil, one of our clients, talked specifically about doing something with gasoline taxes.
And in order to avoid the possibility, or to reduce the possibility of boot lagging and illegal sales, this has been something that we've been working on for a long period of time.
Yeah, we had commissioned a chew on this program last week, who announced that this was the highest priority for him.
So, well let me ask you this, as a result of this, I'm always fascinated between the electoral process and the substantive process in the legislature.
In other words, it has been said by a few people that lobbyists can be the guide dogs for PACS, which that they can indicate where money goes.
Does mobile take your advice as to who to give money to in this electoral process?
Well, let's not talk about particular clients. A mobile makes really no political contributions, but I think that they're not the average client.
I mean we certainly do have a lot of clients who make political contributions, and our law firm makes a significant at least from our point of view, contributions.
I think that for the most part we support incumbents. We support people not because they support our legislation, but because they're there and they have a general view, they're accessible, we're able to talk to them, explain issues to them, and consequently we're comfortable in seeing the status quo mean to...
To get more for making those contributions, or are you afraid if you don't make the contribution you'll get less?
That's a good question. Yes, I guess it is. I don't know that we... I would assume that you, and probably the people who are listening, think that the answer is going to be an invasion.
I think that what we really... Invasion? Invasion?
What we really believe is that the way government elections, whether the way elections are now funded, is that you have to raise money from the public at large, from packs, from labor organizations, from lobbyists.
We think that as one of the major lobbying firms in Albany, that making political contributions is really part of being in that process.
One of the things that we miss very often, when we talk about political contributions, my view is there really are five parties, five political parties in the New York State, no longer two.
There are in Democrats and Republicans, that what it is is that the assembly majority has a political party, the minority has a political party, it's replicated in the Senate, and the governor is the fifth political party.
So there's the think party, the orange team party, the rapoliate party, and the Anderson party.
And the formal party. And what we do at the end is we translate those five parties for ease of election into Democrats and Republicans every two years, and we go to the editorial every four years.
But most of the major contributions that we make, that the adversaries to us make, that labor makes, really go to one of those five, or all of those five in reality, political parties,
will largely improportion to their influence, so that even if the Republican minority in the assembly votes more consistently with the clients that you have, whether it's a single client or a group of clients as we have, I think that Stanley Fink's party is going to get more money, because Stanley Fink exercises more influence at the present time than rapoliate.
And the converse is true in the Senate, that the Republicans are going to get more money in the Senate than the Democrats, but nonetheless, the Democrats are going to get a significant amount of contributions, because they are there.
But the Democrats in the Senate, if I may, to pursue this a little bit, Democrats in the Senate, the minority there will probably do better than Republicans, the minority in the assembly, probably because they have, according to your thesis, a little bit more clout.
They're closer in number, the Republicans depend on their votes quite frequently. Don't you think that there's something to that?
I think that's probably happening. I don't know that that was always true, but I do think that the vote now is closer in the Senate, at least in the numbers.
And one of the things I don't want to give the impression that there really are on major issues, vote counts, and people ask me, oh, if we are only defeated the seatbelt, for instance,
if we had gotten two more votes, it wouldn't have passed, or the age 21 drinking just the reverse of that.
And one of the things that happens, this is much more orchestrated than it very often.
If they need two votes, they get to two votes. Absolutely.
And if they needed ten votes, they get to ten votes. And somebody's armed with arm might get twisted. But let me ask you a question.
Suppose, let me put this to you, suppose, all outside funding, PAC funding for legislative races was ended.
And we went to a public financing of campaigns, or some kind of modified public financing campaigns.
Would a firm like Condello and Ryan, which obviously does make political contributions?
Would you be just as happy? In other words, would you say, well, look, we can do our lobbying job in Albany well, where articulate, where persuasive.
Would you be just as happy to see public financing so that private sources couldn't be used, and then the arm wouldn't be on you?
The expectation wouldn't be on you.
We clearly talk about this. I think when I begin writing a checks out, I wish there were public financing.
I think when I look at it from a distance, some days after the checks were sent, I think that I'm more comfortable with the way the system currently works.
Both from a student of politics and from the lobbyists perspective.
I mentioned earlier, and I honestly believe it, that political contributions by no votes.
What they do is make a statement that you are a serious player in the legislative game, and as a consequence of making political contributions.
And they're probably not of the magnitude that people are thinking about, millions of dollars.
They're just not of that magnitude.
Well, but if Mario Cuomo makes four million dollars at one dinner, that's a lot of dollars.
It's a lot of dollars collectively, but given by an awful lot of people.
I think that the people who made those contributions are saying that we're part of the legislative process, we're part of government in New York state.
We have some serious problems.
It doesn't mean that the governor is going to agree with them, but I think that it says that they're entitled to access to people to let their position be heard.
And I think that for the most part, the issues are decided on the merits, but the merits and large measure are determined by who is able to come in and state their case.
I mean, those issues that are very clear cut, those issues that are emotional, philosophical issues, the death penalty abortion.
Those aren't decided by political contributions, but the ability to come in and say that we should be addressing a tax cut for industry A instead of a tax cut for industry Z.
They might both be equally entitled to some sort of relief.
The person who is able to have his case heard is a one most likely to see that relief come to fruition.
And I think that's what the political contributions do vis-a-vis the lobbyist ability to make his case heard.
One last question.
We listened to the state of the state together, you and I.
Is there a rachomon effect to all of this? In other words, is there a projection that people perceive what happened in a state of a state very differently?
If you happen to have been, for example, somebody who's interested in building houses in New York State, you might have said, well, that was terrific.
That's a terrific speech, right?
But at the same time, you have to be a poor person who's out there, you say, well, isn't that a nice governor? He's going to build me a house during that time.
And they might not have perceptions of each other's interests when they're thinking that.
As opposed to there might even be somebody who's fiscally prudent out there who would say, gee, I don't want my money spent in this time.
Does it even begin to think that his investment in bank stock might be helpful to him?
Do you think that is it your experience that people have different perceptions after hearing the same speech?
Not just the governor's speech. I think people have different perceptions. I'm sure there are people out there who are going to have a different perception of what we say.
I know I talked, when we talked earlier about political contributions. This is the first time you and I have had a discussion.
It is certainly isn't the first time I've been asked the question. And after I give largely the same answer, different people hear me say different things.
I certainly think that they're going to hear the governor say a lot of different things.
I think one of the, from my point of view, is a lobbyist. I think that there is probably uniformity of interpretation among the lobbyists and among the legislators who are ultimately going to make the decision on what the governor said in his state of the state message.
And I really think that that perception is the one that's going to control the perception that the governor is looking for with a public at large.
Even if he didn't mean it. Even if he didn't mean it. But I mean, I do think that the governor has two agendas.
He's talking, well, maybe several agendas, talking to a number of different people, talking that group we just talked about. He's also trying to be an articulate, caring, informed, intelligent governor and irrespective of the specificity of the statement.
I think he was able to do that. And that's what the large number of people are going to hear. That's his San Francisco speech again.
The lobbyist and lawyer Jim Ryan, the governor's third state of the state was evidence of a maturation process.
Gone was the telephone book of ideas offered last year. Gone was the ruffles and the bugle calls of the 84th state of the state.
Here was a fairly somber governor who was offering a realistic, moderate program to his working partners in a legislative process for Stanley Fink, an environmental bill close to his heart.
For Warren Anderson and controller Regan, a tax cut and a proposal for a constitutionally balanced budget.
Something that we may be hearing more from him about when he meets the Republicans on the field of battle in 1988. I can just hear it now.
We did it in New York and you Republicans couldn't wipe out your deficit in eight years of Reagan administration.
And the governor seems to have a motto. If something works, try it again. He got tremendous approval for his rebuild New York campaign.
All the elements were there. The unions loved it. The banks loved it. They were in on the action. Even his old nemesis, the AA, loved it.
Now he gets all the same forces and is even able to direct it towards a social good, housing those who couldn't afford it otherwise. He calls for a $3.5 billion housing initiative.
But contrasted with that initiative and his image as a moderate, tucked away in the written version of his message is this neat little line borrowed from Nelson Rockefeller.
It says that we should quote, pay as you go. It's real hard for me to figure out how you can suggest pays you go when you're also talking about a $3.5 billion housing initiative which the taxpayers are going to have to pay the interest on.
And of course, for the governor, there was life without parole. The governor is always interesting assertion. Incorrect, I think, that criminals prefer and fear life without parole to the death penalty.
I wonder whether that's why you always see the convicted criminals who are about to die petitioning the Supreme Court for states of execution.
But while the speech was dull by comparison with some of his other work, it would appear that the governor had his eye on the ball, which is what some call politics or the art of the possible.
For fairly lackless to speech though, the governor showed us a lot about where his political head is at.
That's our show for this week. Join us again next week for another look at state government and politics.
Feel growl the edits and produces this program. Richard P. LePkowski is associate editor.
By the way, as the section moves ahead and you have a question or a story idea, please let us know our address is a legislative Gazette WAMC Box 13,000, Albany, New York 1-2-2.
I'm Alan Chartock.
The legislative Gazette is produced by WAMC News. Alan Chartock is executive producer. This program is made possible with funds from the state University of New York College at Newport.
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