Lazio Says He Would Have Done This Months Ago

ALBANY—Rick Lazio said that David Paterson's message to the legislature yesterday was accurate. But late.

"I would have called them back much earlier; I would have stayed on top of them much earlier," Lazio, the only Republican who has formally declared a campaign for Paterson's job, told me by phone.  "It's going to be much more painful than it needed to be if we had done it six months ago."

Lazio said that the governor as well as both Democratic-controlled houses of the legislature should act.

"They are both to blame," he said. "Both the legislature and the governor over time participated in creating the crisis that we have, and they compound it every day by lack of agreement and failure of leadership. It's very clear that you can't get through this crisis by borrowing against tobacco funds and other one-shots."