Man to watch in 2011 . . . Andrew Cuomo?
By D.J. McGuire | Monday, January 3rd, 2011 | Policy, Politics
The most dramatic event of 2011 may have happened this Saturday in Albany, New York (of all places), when Andrew Cuomo was sworn in as Governor of New York. Cuomo’s election in a state largely dominated by Democrats did not surprise, nor did the loftiness of his rhetoric, a trait inherited from him father. It was what Governor Andrew Cuomo said that may radically reshape American politics from top to bottom.
That the New York Post had such high praise for his words was telling, but here’s some of the verbiage itself:
State government has grown too large, and we can’t afford it. This state has no future if it’s going to be the tax capital of the nation.
Beyond the rhetoric, Cuomo “has vowed to shrink the number of state agencies by one-fifth and to make substantial cuts to the state’s Medicaid program, the most costly in the nation” (New York Times). One day after taking the oath, he imposed a state workers pay freeze (NYT) and said he wants a “temporary tax increase” on wealthy New Yorkers to actually be temporary (i.e., expire this year) – “I say no new taxes, period” (Saratogian).
Keep in mind, this is a New York Democrat.
Now, Cuomo faces both a $10 billion state budget deficit and a legislature that is actually more dysfunctional than Congress. Any other Governor who talked like that in New York – no matter what their party – would be almost certainly eaten alive.
However, this is Cuomo, the heir to a political family that is as close to royalty as New York has – and a man whose reaction to the Republican nomination of a Teabrewer to oppose him last year was to try running to the Teabrewer’s right. He didn’t succeed in that, but it did get him a landslide victory in the process.
New York’s fiscal year starts in April, so in theory we should know if Cuomo can convince a barely Republican State Senate and an Assembly controlled by machine Democrats to cut the budget and avoid tax increase by then. In practice, almost all New York budgets are passed late, and odds are this one probably will be, too.
However, if Cuomo can manage to pull it off, it could trigger several tectonic political shifts at once.
For starters, any politician who talks about tax increases, from the lowliest supervisor to the president himself, will be forced to answer why they can’t cut spending properly if Andrew Cuomo can. For Republican tax-hikers, this could be especially painful as they face the prospect of primary challengers reminding them that a liberal Democrat from New York managed to do what they couldn’t.
The real long-term implications, though, are probably things not even Cuomo himself is pondering.
Imagine it’s late 2011. For whatever reason, the GOP attempt to roll back spending in Washington bogs down. Teabrewers are angry and demoralized. Voters that thought they were sending to Washington and their state capitals folks who would cut government and deficits down to size start to wonder if either political party gets it. Talk of “third parties” grow.
All of a sudden somebody whispers, “Andrew Cuomo for President” . . .
. . . and Katy bar the door.
Sure, Cuomo himself will insist he has no interest (and he’d probably be honest about that), but what happens when some Teabrewers (and there will be some), Italian-Americans, heartbroken Clinton-backers, and Democrats worried about Obama’s re-election chances converge on the Empire State leader who tamed the culture of corruption and runaway spending in Albany?
Even without a presidential run, a Governor Cuomo who managed to balance the budget in New York without reaching for New Yorkers’ wallets will end up creating (if only by accident at first) and then leading (probably not by accident) a new faction of limited-government Democrats. It could create nationally the Virginia anomaly of the middle of last decade, when tax-hiking Republicans drove small-l libertarians into the arms of the Democrats – only this time without someone driving them just as batty with his own predilections for raising taxes (i.e., Kaine or Warner).
With a Cuomo presidential run, we could actually see both parties compete for supporters of limited government – which would be a first in American history.
Of course, Cuomo actually has to pull this off, first. The odds are long, and let’s face it, nearly all Democrats (and many, many Republicans) have terrible histories when it comes to turning talk on reducing the size of government into action. However, if Andrew Cuomo does manage to hold true to his word, the Democratic party – and American politics – may never be the same.
Stay tuned.
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11 Responses to "Man to watch in 2011 . . . Andrew Cuomo?"
Equally impressive was Jerry Brown’s inaugural speech in California today. He addressed the budget deficit there and said “we can’t balance the budget by eliminating waste. Government does waste money, but that is not the cause of the deficit. It is out of control spending.”
When is the last time you heard a politician from either side not claim that he was going balance the budget by “eliminating waste?” When Governor Moonbeam gets fiscal religion, there is a new movement afoot in this country.
BTW, Cuomo is right–you can’t balance the budget by taxing the wealthy, either, as much as the class warriors would like you to think so. Notice that Maryland’s millionaire surcharge was repealed after one-third of the millionaire filers from the year before it went into effect disappeared completely from the tax rolls the year that it went into effect. If you try to soak the rich, then they will simply go somewhere else and not pay any taxes at all. (In the case of Maryland, I suspect that a thousand weekend homes in Delaware or West Virginia suddenly became primary residences.)
I appluad Cuomo’s approach, however I question the tectonic shift.
I think NY ought to be one of the easier places to cut spending, simply because it is the most out of control. NY could cut taxes and still have them be way higher than VA’s even if we raised them (which I am not advocating at this time)
Bottom Line is I think that “no tax increses, ever” and “tax increase is the solution” are not the only choices. Having a generally low tax climate (and otherwise pro business as VA does) means that the occassional tax increase can be handled much more easily. Witness the 2004 Warner tax program and VA subsequently being named best state for business by FOrbes in 06-09 and number 2 in 2010.
Once again, I appluad what Cuomo is calling for in NY. But would he be calling for that in a lower tax state that had a AAA bond rating?
Could Gov. Cuomo be a 21st Century Daniel Patrick Moynihan? It is early, as you say, but so far his rhetoric sounds promising and sadly, as a Democrat, he might be able to affect more change in Albany than a Republican ever could.
I’m sure somewhere sometime Pres Obama said the same thing. It is interesting that the proponents of out of control spending say that we can’t afford out of control spending while they continue more out of control spending. Does anyone remember Nancy Pelosi and pay as you go? If you view it as Clinton speak you’ll notice it says “pay as YOU go.”
I’ll believe it when i see it. Albany is a wretched hive of scum and villainy (and some of the bars are as creepy as the Mos Eisley cantina, especially around closing time at 4 a.m.)
This goes to show that a philosophical renaissance is taking place in American politics.
It also indicates that the rent is too damn high…
Riley,
That comment was immensely offensive to the planet Tatooine. Not even the Huts deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Albany legislators.
Speaking of Dems saying things, does anyone remember Sen Webb’s “attack” on affirmative action programs and set asides? A whole post was devoted to it here? Does even Sen Webb remember it?
Val: That’s not EXACTLY what the Senator said. His position is that affirmative action is a)relevant and appropriate only for African Americans, who experienced a history of discrimination, and not also Asian and Hispanics who also benefit from it and b) too insensitive to class, as low income whites have many of the same hurdles to overcome. It was not a blanket condemnation of affirmative action.
P.S. …. although I’ll conceed that a lot of people on the left reacted to Webb’s comments as if they WERE a blanket call for the end of affirmative action.
“Attack” in quotes means that the word is being used ironically. I know what Webb said since I actually remember the original post. And that was not even the main point. I was noting how often Dems say things for the sound effect. They have become chronic flippant liars in plain speak. Even Dem-leaning acquaintances are starting to agree.
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