Originally posted at
The Yankee Rag
I was riding the M103 uptown today to get a fix work funded free wireless for some outdoor blogging and got to see Ed Koch's mug on this RNC poster:
What struck me was how odd it was that this year Koch has teamed up with both the RNC and Tom Suozzi on two very different projects. The former mayor is a Vice-Chair for the NYC Host Committee trying to make the convention a rousing success while at the same time he is working with Suozzi on the Nassau County Exec's Fix Albany Project. Then it struck me that these two projects, ideologically, are mutually exclusive as the Republicans are creating many of the problems that Fix Albany is fighting to correct.
Fix Albany's mission statement states:
Fix Albany is a Political Committee created to reform New York State government, and keep Albany legislators accountable for their actions...
Our state representatives in Albany give themselves pats on the backs for passing politically popular programs, and then they shift the cost off the State's books and onto the local governments. Along with other unfunded mandates, Medicaid is the best example of this unfair and irresponsible governing. New York's Medicaid program is the most expensive one in the United States--two and a half times the national average.
Yet at the same time the National Conference of State Legislatures released results from a study on March 10th, 2004 - 21 days before Fix Albany was formed - which found the federal governement, aka the Republicans as they control everything, is trying to shift $29 billion in costs from Washington into the state capitols.
The nation's top legislative leaders kicked off a campaign to stop the federal government from stiffing states for an array of programs that Washington dictates but doesn't adequately fund, complaining that the bill to states is $29 billion this year alone....
NCSL said the federal government is shortchanging states $9.6 billion in enforcing the No Child Left Behind education law and another $10 billion in providing education for disabled students...
NCSL also singled out the following programs for shortchanging states by millions of dollars:
- Election reform. States haven't yet received $2.4 billion needed to develop computerized databases of registered votes and meet other requirements of the federal Help America Vote Act.
- Environment. States are short $1 billion to comply with federal clean water, drinking water and clean air requirements.
- Food stamps. Congress reduced payments to states for administering the program by $227 million.
I know in the political world this kind of doublespeak is the norm, but someone like Suozzi should not be aligning himself with such a hypocrite. Suozzi has already shown he is willing to call people out and ruffle some feathers, so why shouldn't he make sure he and his "allies" are towing the same line?