Gov. Cuomo seemed to be channeling President Obama — emphasizing the role of government in solving problems — as he presented his $137 billion budget plan yesterday. You’d almost think the 2016 presidential race had already begun.
“The driver is government,” Cuomo insisted, touting Albany’s ability to fix problems — and echoing Obama’s inaugural-speech focus on “collective action.”
Alas, an activist Albany won’t solve New York’s biggest woe: the decades-long hemorrhage of people, and money, out of the state. Rather, it’s likely to make it worse.
Cuomo proposes to hold spending to just 2 percent more than this year — not counting Sandy-related outlays, to be funded largely by Washington. And he’s vowing “no new taxes,” repeating a 2011 pledge he broke shortly thereafter. (Indeed, this year’s plan actually includes fee hikes and new limits on tax deductions.)
He also claims a chief goal is economic development and jobs. Surely that’s a critical objective, particularly for Upstate — whose economy he himself calls “sad.”
Fact is, for the past decade, US economic growth has doubled the pace of growth in the upstate region. New York as a whole, meanwhile, continues to labor under an 8.2 percent joblessness rate, almost a half-point higher than the national level.
So what’s Cuomo’s idea of jolting the economy? That’s right: more government.
He talks about “public-private partnerships,” government-backed development councils (ladling out taxpayer dollars for favored projects), “helping emerging industries,” a state marketing campaign . . .
Old retreads, that is, that have done little for New York in the past.
Oh, yeah — he’s also betting on casinos for Upstate. (Good luck with that.)
At the same time, Cuomo is pushing a 21 percent hike in the state’s minimum wage — to $8.75, from $7.25 — which will only tell employers that they can save a fortune by going elsewhere.
And he continues to maintain a government ban on the one thing that could spark enormous activity in the Southern Tier: fracking, the new method for extracting natural gas from underground shale.
Cuomo is right: In New York, government is “the driver.” Which might explain why folks have been opting for different cars.