Albany Chaos Open Thread

ravitch_paterson.jpgPhoto: Times-Union

With Governor Paterson’s political career flaming out in spectacular fashion, speculation is rampant that he might step down any day, thrusting Richard Ravitch into New York state’s executive office.

Ravitch would inherit a budget crisis of epic proportions and a state capital that was already in utter disarray. The potential succession would also elevate a former MTA chair with no future political ambitions, at a time when transit funding is in dire straits and no one in Albany seems inclined to face up to the problem.

Consider this an open thread for predictions on how the next few weeks and months will play out in Albany. I’m dying to see who’s going to be Ravitch’s lieutenant governor.

  • Eliot Spitzer said he was going to change Albany, he just didn’t tell us that it would repeat every year. I frankly don’t think Paterson will resign, but even if he does we have essentially a lame duck either way.

    It would be hard for Ravitch (or Paterson) to claim any mandate to fight any opposition to budget cuts, but without him the Democrats will need GOP support to overcome any veto threats so essentially Ravitch will control the agenda. If he can take all the blame, that would suit state legislators just fine, but ultimately most Democrats will have to vote on the final budget and the GOP can sit back and criticize it all they want.

    Either way, the good news, the Governor doesn’t have to pander for votes anymore – whoever it is will be a strong position to make painful choices and take responsibility.

  • Boris

    I think Ravitch being governor would be the best of many possible worlds. Unfortunately, what we need is an impossible world, given the current Legislature and laws.

    I’m also a bit concerned about his age.

  • Can we get some Cuomo coverage? As far as I can tell, he’s successfully avoided taking a position on either congestion pricing or bridge tolls, or any other MTA funding options.

    All that stuff that Shaun Donovan is doing about making HUD more oriented towards transit and walking, and less towards driving and sprawl? Cuomo was HUD secretary for four years and didn’t make any of those changes.

    Cuomo really seems completely uninterested in transportation issues. That would be fine, as long as he appoints – and supports – people who will be good on those issues, as Paterson did with Walder and Ravitch.

    Also, we still don’t have a State DOT Commissioner yet. This is a post that could make a tremendous difference in terms of all the billions that are planned to be spent on road and bridge widenings in the next few years. Will the next Governor appoint someone who’s progressive, or just another road-builder?

  • Larry Littlefield

    My advice — ride a bicycle as our leaders continue to wreck the future, with the latest chaos just an extension of the past 20 years.

    Here is some inspiration from our Winter Olympics team.

    http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/olympics/2010/writers/selena_roberts/02/25/usoc.olympians/

    “There is a Lord of the Flies vibe to a United States team that entered the Winter Games as a group of athletes who had been deserted by authority for two years. The leadership at the United States Olympic Committee kept changing — Jim Scherr was CEO, then Stephanie Streeter, wait, it’s now Scott Blackmun redux (he was the interim chief in 2000) — leaving the Olympians largely on their own island.”

    The USOC has collapsed into “dysfunction and infighting” after years of “serial state of disarray” as “an organization of volunteers who fought over what member got the best office furniture, received a USA blazer or gained an IOC dinner invite” that ended up having to lay off much of its staff.

    “So what did these “Flies” do? Instead of following the book and deteriorating into chaos, the U.S. Olympians governed themselves in so many ways. In a bad economy, many relied on their own resourcefulness when their endorsement deals dried up, USOC budgets tightened and Home Depot ended its Olympic jobs program for athletes.”

  • Emily Litella

    Richard Ravitch, change we can hope for.

  • something clearly needs to happen and our parks need not to be closed. Just because the City and Albany (and Buffalo/Syracuse area) are the pop bases does not mean they get to close 3 parks in the north country just because we don’t matter.

    Patterson was not a man to be Governor, he never was built for the task, especially not of NY. lets cut what is left without cutting meat and lets raise taxes and fees to pay the rest. congestion pricing, bridge tolls for MTA dedicated tax for SUNY and the parks, one that does not go into the general fund, or wont for at least 10 years.

    this country and state are failing in so many ways, only collectively can we transition to a livable community orientation and lessen our fossil fuel dependence

  • Jeffrey Hymen

    Richard Ravitch is exactly the kind of person I would like to see in elected office, so I am fine if he takes over. Not that he’d ever run in a head-to-head contest, which is why we get professional politicians rather than technocrats in elected office, but I would vote for him in the ballot booth.

    I believe Coumo was “only” an under-secretary at HUD, which is of course higher than my career will ever go but my dad didn’t make any introductions for me along the way.

  • Ravitch v. Cuomo would be an excellent primary fight. Would really force Cuomo to take positions on transit issues and show us where he stands.

    Perhaps it’s time for a Draft Ravitch campaign, make Cuomo work for it? I’m down.

  • okay, basically my laptop has wireless that is supposedly connected, but whenever i try to get it to work on either Internet Explore or Firefox, neither work! it keeps trying to connect and never works! so… if any of you computer geniuses can tell me what is wrong with my connection… i would be grateful!

    _____________
    Ciasta

  • Everytime i turn on my computer i have to press f1 so it can go to the home screen. Why? Is there any way i can fix it?

    ________________
    Przepisy na ciasta

  • loutsturf

    kawalerka wynajem
    kawalerka
    kupie mieszkanie
    nieruchomosci komercyjne kraków
    wynajme mieszkanie w warszawie
    posrednictwo nieruchomosci
    schody
    nieruchomosci kedzierzyn
    mieszkanie do wynajecia gdansk

    nieruchomosci mieszkania bezposrednio
    mieszkania sprzedam
    mieszkania bielsko wynajem

  • If you don’t know what Tuneup is it is a program that will clean up unknown information on your music files. Only problem is it runs though Itunes which has never worked properly with my computer for one reason or another so I have removed it entirely. Most of my music lacks info and to do it manually will take time I don’t have right now. I have winamp and WMP so if there is a way to get this done with those it would be great to know how or an other program I could use.

    _________
    Przepisy na ciasta

  • I went on ‘cyri.systemrequirementslab.com’, and did a test for TES4: Oblivion, and I failed the test. The only thing I failed was the video card section. I have a:Intel(R) 82915G”GV”910GL Express Chipset the minimum is: 128MB Direct3D compatible video card (NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700+ / ATI Radeon 9500+) But what do you guys suggest?

    ___________________
    Dentysta

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