Gov. Cuomo’s State of the State address Wednesday left us wondering: What happened to the Gov. Cuomo of 2011?
You know, the one who used his first State of the State to speak with candor about New York’s woes. “Upstate is truly in economic crisis,” Cuomo said back then. New York, he noted, “has the worst business climate in the nation.”
That Andrew decried the state’s out-of-control spending, sky-high taxes and the hemorrhaging of businesses and residents. He also recognized that New York’s challenge was to “turn this crisis into an opportunity to fundamentally remake our state.”
Then there’s the Andrew we saw Wednesday. His message: “In three years,” he told pols, “you have reversed decades of decline.”
Sorry, we don’t see it.
Fact is, New York’s business climate is still regularly ranked at the bottom. Taxes are too high and causing folks to flee. Yes, some of the tax measures he announced will help. But overall they are too modest or too targeted or too complicated to “fundamentally remake” the punishing tax code holding the Empire State back.
Just one example: When you have to explain your cut in terms of a “circuit breaker,” you know you are not moving to a cleaner, simpler tax code.
But to get an idea of just how watered down the governor’s vision has become, look at his boast Wednesday of having closed a “$10 billion budget gap.” Back in 2011, he correctly called that figure a “sham.”
True, 2014 is an election year, and he needs to brag about his record. And to be fair, that record could have been a lot worse under a bigger tax-and-spend pol.
Politically Cuomo may even get away with this approach. But if so, it will be because calls for tax hikes by Mayor de Blasio and others on New York’s leftward fringes make Cuomo look like Ronald Reagan.
In short, this is small ball. And it sure won’t fix what ails New York.