Being non-partisan (or, more accurately, someone
who thinks “both” parties are equally bad), in last week’s election I practiced
what I preach, voting for people and principles, not party. My ballot saw
bubbles filled in for 1 Libertarian, 3 Republicans, and 3 Democrats in
contested races.
With a mixed approach like that I was pleasantly
surprised that control of the US House of Representatives went to the Democrats.
Despite being someone who, as long-time readers would gather, trends closer to
the right than the left, I welcome mixed control of our constitutional
republic. Republicans shouldn’t hold all the power. And, neither should the
Democrats. Even with all the division and divisiveness doled out by that, our
citizens are best served by diversity of people and thought -- we need a means
of check-and-balance. One party should not be fully empowered to run roughshod
over a country or state. Someone has to be there to tighten the reins.
That said, the outcome of the state elections is
what has me greatly concerned. The Democrats won the Senate, which means they
control both houses of the Legislature and the Governor’s office. It will make
a bad situation a lot worse.
New York, specifically upstate, is in rough shape
economically. It’s expensive to start or build a business here unless you
happen to be a well-heeled, well-connected entrepreneur -- and I use the term “entrepreneur”
loosely when those businessmen come to the trough -- like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos
who have all sorts of money and inducements thrown their way. Our towns, villages, and cities have become
economic wastelands thanks to public policy that has driven too many bright
minds and too many loved ones from our borders for better opportunity
elsewhere.
This decline has come about from a group effort.
In recent years, through force of bullying in both
houses or through executive fiat, Governor Andrew Cuomo has driven a stake
through the heart of our dying upstate economy. A cornucopia of failed, or
soon-to-fail, experiments from massive minimum wage hikes to the possible end
of the tipped wage to 12 weeks of universal bereavement leave to call-in pay
standards, to name a few, have done nothing but stifle opportunity. Realize
that we’re talking about an administration so morbidly into micromanagement of
the private sector that it now regulates how farmers use old tires to keep tarps
down on their feed bunkers.
Cuomo’s long-standing foes in the
Republican Party are just as guilty as he. Remember, the Senate was alleged to
be in its glory years when Joe Bruno was in charge of it from 1994 to 2008. If
it was, how did an alleged fiscally-conservative GOP double state spending
under his watch with fellow Republican George Pataki in the Governor’s office
for most of those years?
Mind you, all of those horrible
policies and bad spending habits (and many more like them) have occurred for
the most part with not one party having total control of the 3 Men in a Room
routine. Bruno had Assembly leader Sheldon Silver as a foil, while Cuomo has
had John Flanagan and before him Dean Skelos leading the Senate.
If the checks and balances of having
multiple parties sharing some of the control were really in play, think of how
bad things really could have been had they not. Without Sheldon Silver, even as
corrupt as he was, would Bruno and Company have increased state spending even
more? Without Flanagan looking over his shoulder, what more could Cuomo have
pushed through from his self-proclaimed progressive agenda?
I guess we’ll find out the answer to
that second question over the next couple of years, if not for an even longer
period of time.
If I had to hazard a guess we’ll soon
see mandated paid sick time, increased taxation of electrical energy and
heating fuels, passage of Cuomo’s once-denied 14% windfall tax on health
insurance, a carbon trading system, a Ban the Box movement, the end of
employment-at-will, a push for a single-payer system, a transformation and
strengthening of state agencies to usurp local control, and more money thrown
at education without first fixing the broken system that has neutered school
boards and stifled good teachers.
That’s just a sampling of what could
occur. There’s likely much more to worry about.
If you own a business or home in
upstate New York State brace yourself. The past few decades have been a race to
the bottom with two parties sharing – and abusing -- the power. Now, with one
party having total control, the bottom will get here a lot quicker.
From
the 12 November Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News
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