A New York State Stalemate
When No One Wins…
Chess is a game of strategy where you always need to be at least one move ahead of your opponent. The ultimate victor is the one who declares Checkmate! However, more often than not, many chess games end in a stalemate. No one wins, you’re simply left sitting in your chair looking at your opponent as the chess pieces on the board can move no more. When it’s a game, that’s fine. You just pick up the pieces and move on. However, when governmental leaders play a game of chess with taxpayer money, we expect more. That’s exactly what’s happening in New York State these days.
New York State leaders are playing chess, they’re at a stalemate,
and they’re all poor losers.
New York State is in the midst of a budgetary crisis. Governor Paterson appears to be working hard to deal with the crisis. But many other leaders are simply playing a game of chess. However, they have no clue what their opponents next move will be. As a result, the leaders have egg on their face, and are in the midst of a stalemate. The so-called leaders have stooped to name-calling and are exhibiting the traits of a poor loser.
These so-called leaders of New York State should be ashamed of themselves.
While The Government Plays…The Taxpayer Loses!
The sad aspect of this New York State game of chess is the fact that the only people losing in this game are the taxpayers. Assemblymen and Senators head back to their offices year after year. While they say they don’t get paid much for what they do, when you add in the bloated expense accounts, you suddenly find our government leaders are laughing all the way to the bank — with our money! Governor David Paterson called the so-called leaders together yesterday to deal with the budget crisis facing New York State. This years budget will end up $2 billion dollars short with projections for next year hitting double digits in the billions of dollars. Governor Paterson has been asking for weeks for the so-called leaders to come up with suggestions on how to trim $2 billion dollars from this years budget. Have they done that? No! Instead they draw their political lines in the sand, dig their feet into the ground, and are happy to end the chess game in stalemate.
Who’s losing in this game? We are! The taxpayer!
Yesterday’s do-nothing-session did not cost the political leaders a dime. Instead, by the time you add in the politicians salary and the fact that they all traveled to Albany with full expenses paid, the taxpayer is the only one who lost money yesterday.
Here’s what the equation looks like…
Politicians Salary + Expenses = $40,000 for one day of work wasted time
In the midst of this foolishness the Governor did go after the leaders asking them why they came to the meeting with nothing. It’s certainly not like they didn’t know the meeting was coming. If you or I showed up at a meeting with our boss with nothing prepared, many of us would find ourselves kicking stones down the road looking for another job. But, such is not the case with those in Albany. Instead they smile with a sense of satisfaction when they know full well they accomplished nothing.
At one point Governor Paterson called out the Republican Senate Leader, Dean Skelos, saying, “You brought nothing. You don’t have anything for us to show and you still show up here. Mr. Leader, with all do respect, I’m still waiting for your solution to the problem.”
Senator Skelos, visibly reeling from the Governor’s words stuttered and stammered and then said, “How about cutting the $200 million dollars in member items in the budget?” The Governor responded to the cut suggestion, “I’d say okay, that’s $200 million, now we have 1.8 to go.”
Skelos was speechless because he thought he had a gotcha.
Senator Skelos should resign.
As the politicians bicker, we also discover they are once again ignoring what We the people are saying. A recent poll revealed that New Yorkers overwhelmingly support Governor Paterson’s message that the state should cut spending. In a recent poll 75 percent of voters think the state budget gap of $2 billion dollars for this fiscal year should be closed by cutting spending. Only 10 percent support increasing taxes and 9 percent favor borrowing money.
It’s obvious leaders such as Dean Skelos could care less about what the people think about the current budget crisis. Instead, he’s probably the one who’s more concerned about his member item dollars and expense account. Senator Skelos made a suggestion, the Governor said fine, and Skelos was speechless not knowing what to say next.
Now The Finger-Pointing Begins
At this point it’s too easy to fall into the finger-pointing game. Finger-pointing does nothing. As my mother used to always say, when you point your finger at someone, remember, you always have three fingers pointing right back at you. Team players realize finger-pointing accomplishes nothing. Blaming the other person, or the other team, does not make you a better team. All it does is make you out as a sore and bad loser. Team players come together as a team, and work together as a team, in order to find a solution to whatever problem might be facing the team.
It’s obvious our Albany political leaders do not know the meaning of team.
Was it right for Governor Paterson to point his finger of blame at Senator Skelos? Of course not. But it’s also not right for Senator Skelos to wag his finger at the Governor. But the finger pointing is not limited to just Governor Paterson and Senator Skelos. On the heels of the do-nothing-special-session from yesterday, Republican Assembly Leader James Tedisco released a statement assessing all the blame to his counterpart in the Assembly, Democratic Speaker Sheldon Silver.
In his finger-pointing statement Assemblyman Tedisco said;
“At today’s five-way meeting of the Legislative Leaders, some serious and substantive proposals were offered to help address New York’s mounting budget deficit. What we didn’t hear was a single idea from Speaker Silver as to how to deal with our state’s fiscal crisis. Not only did the Speaker refuse to offer a suggestion, but he failed to indicate which of the Governor’s budget cuts he would support.”
Is it right for Assemblyman Tedisco to point the finger at Assemblyman Silver? Of course not. Is it right for Silver to point his finger at Tedisco? Again, no. In the end, the finger pointing does nothing. The taxpayer is still suffering here and New York State is suffering big time. Assemblyman Tedisco said some “substantive proposals” were made. I for one would like to know what those proposals are. All we’ve heard up to this point is name-calling and naysayers. Later this morning I have an interview with Assemblyman Brian Kolb on my Live Line talk show. I will be asking him about the so-called substantive proposals.
The financial crisis facing New York State did not happen overnight. Instead we find ourselves facing the billion dollars shortfall as a result of mismanagement at the government level in Albany. Now our political leaders find themselves in a big game of chess where no one is the winner. Instead, while they declare stalemate, we the taxpayer, are saying grow up.
We just went through an election cycle. Maybe the voters didn’t clear the chess board enough. Maybe we should have totally cleaned the board and put in leaders who know the definition of team.
Just my two cents,
Dr. Rus
