January 4, 2007


Today is Day Four.
 
On Day Three, Governor Spitzer delivered his first State of the State.  The speech was longer and more detailed than his Inaugural on Day One, because it dealt with specific programs, although necessarily in a more or less general way.   The governor's remarks appear on the New York State website.  You can link to the speech here.

The address was widely covered in today's newspapers. Editorially, all the dailies commented on it except the Times. You can link here to the Post, the News, Newsday and the Sun.  The Times editorial board wrote about the inaugural yesterday.   In general, newspapers give you a week to link to their stories before you are required to pay for access.
 
The first paragraphs of Danny Hakim's story in the Times, A1,c1, tells it well.  Under the three-tiered headline, unusual nowadays, "SPITZER REQUESTS SWEEPING ARRAY OF NEW MEASURES - A DRUMBEAT FOR REFORM - Legislators Hear Proposals on Health Insurance, Tax Cuts and Courts ",  Hakin wrote as follows::
 
 "Gov. Eliot Spitzer proposed overhauling almost every corner of the state's operations and policies in his first address to the legislature on Wednesday.  He said he would move swiftly to guarantee health insurance for all children in the state, toughen campaign finance laws, cut property taxes by $6 billion and draft constitutional amendments to overhaul the state's courts.
 
"The dizzying collection of ambitious proposals reflects how the new governor is moving quickly to capitalize on the momentum of his landslide victory and recent government corruption scandals to push through major initiatives early in his term."
 
The State of the State message was a comprehensive summary of much that the new administration seeks to accomplish.  Ethics and reform of the legislative process take a high place on the Spitzer agenda.  As we have written, it is quite difficult to enact a substantive agenda when the people you are working with are either outright crooks or individuals guided by personal considerations and commitments rather than by the public interest.
 
The enthusiasm surrounding the inaugural, and the overwhelming electoral victory of Eliot Spitzer, has temporarily set aside the divisions that have been used for years to paralyze Albany (Democrats/Republicans), (upstate/suburban/downstate).   But the powerful forces that have called the shots for successive legislatures are still there, and their moneybags are as full as ever. They are waiting for the white knight to falter.  And, even if he does not, who can tell how many lawmakers will find themselves in need of contributions for their legal defense, if not for their political campaigns.
 
We thought on Tuesday that Spitzer's reference to a "decade" of  "standstill" was a bit gratuitous in suggesting, in Governor Pataki's courteous presence, that only Pataki's lackluster administration had created the problems facing of New York State. But when we re-read the Governor's remarks, we saw that Spitzer's most striking literary and historical reference was to Rip Van Winkle.
 
On going back to the classic New York folk tale by Washington Irving (1783-1859), we were reminded that the Catskill burgher had slept for twenty years, not for ten.  As long as State government was deemed by its new chief executive to have been unconscious for a longer than one decade, his reference was clearly bi-partisan and not directed against any individual.  In fact, the state's problems go back even further than one generation, and the legislature has usually been more guilty than the governor.  Irving's  story, by the way, is beautifully written in the style of the time (1819), and it compares favorably with today's fiction.  We wonder how many public schools in New York State, even in the Hudson Valley, now require their students to read this narrative.
 
We learned something else yesterday from a subscriber's e-mail. Our penultimate paragraph Tuesday dealt with the British novelist George Eliot, who was in fact a woman, Mary Anne Evans.  Anyone puzzled by the literary digression should e-mail us and we will tell you its relevance.  We erred, however, when we said the Bronte sisters had written under their own names.  We are indebted to Laura LaVelle, a Parks attorney, and Elizabeth Ashby, a preservationist, for advising us that Charlotte wrote as Currer Bell, Emily as Ellis Bell, and Anne as Acton Bell.  Charlotte wrote "Jane Eyre" and Emily  wrote "Wuthering Heights", both published in1847.  Somehow, history has usually depicted the Brontes by their birth names.  Long in the public domain, the two books were made into major motion pictures in the last decade of the twentieth century.
 
Much like a campaign speech, the State of the State proposed higher expenditures for education, health care for the uninsured, and reduced property taxes.  We await the Budget message, due January 31, (Day Thirty-One) to see how these seemingly contradictory goals will be accomplished.   That will require statecraft.
 
The speech represented the aspirations of many New Yorkers.  It remains to be seen how these hopes can be reconciled with the reality of finite resources and infinite potential demands, which may or may not be definitely desirable, but are definitely unaffordable.
 
We wish the new governor well in accomplishing the goals he has laid out for his administration.  We urge him to go forward, but at the same time to watch his back.
 

#341 01.04.07   876wds