‘The New York of today looks pretty different from the New York of 18 months ago,” Gov. Cuomo said Friday — the day after the state Legislature absconded for summer vacation — and that’s true enough.
Moreover, he continued, the 2012 legislative session “was among the most productive and broadest-reaching in modern political history.”
And that’s true too — if “modern political history” begins with Eliot Spitzer’s spectacular departure from Albany in 2008 and the years of chaos that filled the ensuing vacuum.
The fact is, Cuomo’s signal achievement — and it’s truly no small thing — has been to dampen the drama that made Albany a national symbol for governmental dysfunction.
Just think: There have been two consecutive legislative sessions without a leadership crisis in either the executive or legislative branches; there have been no missed budget deadlines and there have been only a minimum of indictments and arrests.
Elsewhere, this would be normal.
In Albany, it’s considered grounds for high-fives — and pay raises all ’round.
Old habits die hard.
But what actually was accomplished this year?
Not nothing. But not a lot.
Yes, as noted, lawmakers passed a budget by April 1, making the statutory deadline for the second straight year.
And, yes, that budget kept spending flat, at about $133 billion.
Plus, it’s true, there was little of the virulent acrimony and paralysis that characterized sessions past.
But the fact that Albany didn’t disgrace itself yet again hardly justifies self-congratulatory rhetoric.
More to the point, the budget breakthroughs and legislative harmony were made possible only by a massive tax hike levied in December — despite Cuomo’s repeated promises (read his lips!) never to do any such thing. That made the rest of the lift light as a feather.
Other Cuomo promises also fizzled:
* In his State of the State Address, he vowed a huge new convention center at Aqueduct. That idea withered after the would-be developer balked.
* He’s promised counties, cities and towns significant relief from Albany’s bankrupting mandates, relief that became critical after his tax-cap law last year.
Yet the best Cuomo could do was add another pension tier that will yield only marginal savings over the course of decades.
* And the session included two whopping cave-ins to the teachers unions:
The first was when Cuomo had lawmakers pass “fixes” to the teacher-evaluation process — but left them subject to union approval.
The second came last week, when he arranged to take away the public’s court-granted right to see individual teacher-evaluation ratings.
Fact is, apart from the return of a semblance of civility, it’s hard to see much of anything different in Albany.
Presumably, everybody will be back in the Capitol after Election Day to vote pay raises — and that’s about as business-as-usual as it gets.
Cuomo’s stated agenda remains grand.
As delivered, it’s something less.
And that’s troubling.