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March/April 2012
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Blog Contributors
Jarrett Murphy
City Limits
Helen Zelon
Johann Hamilton
Neil deMause
What’s Not to Like About the Cuomo Budget?
For a budget address, Governor Cuomo's speech on Tuesday spent relatively little time on the nuts and bolts of the state's fiscal 2013 spending plan. Seeking to turn a symbolic page from last year's nasty budget fight, the governor argued that closing New York's $2 billion fiscal hole is a simple matter of eliminating waste and cancelling automatic budget increases. The bulk of the gov's talk was about his "reform agenda" of economic development, government streamlining, avoiding future pension obligations and teacher evaluations.
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Related topic categories: Activism and Volunteerism, NYCHA, Albany, Urban Planning and Policy, Workforce and Labor, Housing and Development, Government, The Economy, Andrew Cuomo, Budget
Cuomo Calls For Easier Food Stamp Access
Echoing a call made by anti-hunger advocates for years, Governor Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday argued for the elimination of the requirement that most food stamp applicants be fingerprinted before receiving benefits.
Advocates have long said the requirement was an unnecessary barrier, and in his annual State of the State speech, the governor agreed. "For all of our progress, there are still basic wrongs to right. There is never an excuse for letting any child in New York go
to bed hungry," he told a crowd of legislators, mayors and other dignitaries. "We must increase participation in the food stamp program, remove barriers to participation, and eliminate the stigma associated with this program. And we must stop fingerprinting for food."
Related topic categories: Activism and Volunteerism, Albany, Hunger, Government, Andrew Cuomo, Budget
Hugh Carey, 1919-2011
Having left public life in 1982, Hugh Carey at first glance embodies a different era in politics—that time in the late 20th Century when World War II vets came home, went to school, got involved in local political “machines,” won elections and governed responsibly.
But Carey's death this weekend, as a major ratings agency downgraded U.S. debt after the summer's embarrassing debt-ceiling debate, was a reminder that the argument over who should bear the cost of government is as present in 2011 as it was in the darkest days of New York's fiscal crisis, when Carey—elected in 1974 after several terms as a congressman—steered New York through its near-bankruptcy.
Related topic categories: Activism and Volunteerism, Albany, Government, Budget
