Deep in the whirlpool, Capt. Paterson tries to rally the drunken crew

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/nyregion/10paterson.html





As long as NYS has a Legislature that is 90% populated by self-interested, small minded dolts each of whom are accountable only to a small, hyper-parochial (just invented a word) and largely uninformed electorate, this crap will continue.

To whit:

“Our goal all along has been to close the gap without burdening New York State residents with additional taxes or service cuts, and to turn back midyear reductions to education and health care services,” the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Carl Kruger, said in a statement Monday morning. He added in an interview Monday that cutting education “is never the answer.”

I'll translate:

"We've given away the store for decades, wantonly throwing billions of dollars into ill-conceived and broken programs pushed by our union friends whose phone banks and attack ads get our sorry asses elected year after year. Now the State is broke and on the verge of insolvency. But we don't care that much; what's truly important is getting elected again -- especially in this job market. So we intend to keep our union friends happy and keep telling the gullible public that despite plummeting revenues and soaring debt, spending reductions are draconian, unnecessary and out of the question."

BTW, last I checked NY's per-pupil spending was highest in the country, academic acheivement statewide continues to lag and spending continues to escalate. The car's got a leaky gas tank, and Albany's answer is to keep pouring in more gas.

Random Musing

The only constant in the universe is that change will be continually cited as the only constant in the universe.

Observation:

A wise man is the beneficiary of his experience; a fool, the victim of it.

Observation:

Consensus is the firewall between creativity and progress.