Budgets Amid the Wreckage
What with the heated rhetoric and cancelled events, you have to wonder how the shambolic relations between Eliot Spitzer and the legislature will affect their ability to conduct ordinary government business. Like, say, passing a budget on time.
That's something that has happened, somewhat miraculously, for two years in a row now. Is this the end of an era?
Assembly Ways and Means Committee member Adriano Espaillat says no.
Espaillat, who campaigned in his district with Spitzer in the days before the election, said, "I think that our goal will be to get a budget on time, April, and that cooler heads will prevail. We got to separate the politics from government."
Is that possible?
-- Azi Paybarah
The health care cuts and the education shifts from the suburbs to the city will be the focus of the state budget. Whomever can make the best case to the public will have the upper hand.
Spitzer has to start taking his medication again and then maybe some things like budget and legislation can be accomplished. But if he keeps up the mad dog approach, I fear he will only fall apart and wind up a mentally ill homeless man.
With his family's money--never homeless; but Dr. Jeckle and Mr Hyde, /bi-polar, maybe.
does spitzer remind anyone of giuliani?
No, spitzer does not remind me of giuliani. Giuliani didn't let anyone have access to information, and so far at least Spitzer has done everything out in the open. Not at all the same.
It may take some time - hopefully not too long - but the Governor will come to realize that he has to work WITH the legislature to achieve most of his legislative goals.
Gov. Spitzer is a talented and smart public servant. He will soon move beyond the Comptroller's race - the decision of which lies constitutionally with the legislature and NOT THE EXECUTIVE.
Spitzer was also a far better prosecutor than Rudy could have ever hoped to be.
Excuse me Fidel, Rudy personally prosecuted cases before courts and won. Most, if not all,of Eliot's wins were pre-trial settlements, never court decisions. Big difference.