Recent Comments
Re: “Yup, Harry Wilson Just Wants to Run the State Pension Fund So He Can Dismantle It”
Clever how you pretended yesterday to be neutral in the Comptroller's race, with merely some nagging reservations about Wilson, and now 24 hours later you've come back with such a full throated denunciation of the man.
Setting up a straw man, only to kick him down, may feel like an effective rhetorical conceit but it's not ethical journalism.
As to your definition of the goal of government – I agree with your first statement that (the goal)” is not to make it a more nimble business with a robust balance sheet—it's the well-being of the people who depend upon it”
Where you go wrong is your second statement “Yes, we are spending a lot of tax dollars to support a growing pool of retirees who are living longer than ever. But that's the social contract.”
I disagree that supporting retirees, many of whom are young and more capable of supporting themselves than the average American, is the social contract. No, that is the Public Employee Union Contract that gets politicians re-elected for life - masquerading as the social contract.
In fact, it is the ever burgeoning cost of supporting one sector of society for 30, even 40, years that is a large part of the reason the true social contract is being rendered. When tax collections are down in a recession, as they are today, and governments are forced to cut their budgets, it is the front line of civil servants who take the hit. Whether the administration is a Republican one or a Democratic one, it is never the high priced “rising star” press aide, or the assistant commissioner who is county democratic leader, or the girlfriend hired as a six figure diversity czar who is laid off.
Social workers and sanitation workers and public pool lifeguards are cut, so families in crisis flounder, poor neighborhoods are dirtier and more rat infested ,and in the Summer kids and teenagers have nowhere to escape the oppressive heat.
There is a growing movement of Democrats toward acknowledging pension reform is a progressive issue. David Crane, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s pension advisor, and a respected Democrat, said it best:
“One cannot both be a progressive and be opposed to pension reform. The math is irrefutable that the losers from excessive and unfunded pensions are precisely the programs progressive Democrats tend to applaud. Those programs are being driven out of existence by rising pension costs.”
Regarding Harry Wilson -- a man you accuse of welcoming "the complete disintegration of American industry and the middle class which it supported", which is an incredibly bizarre statement -- it seems respected journalists all over New York somehow have not caught on to this insidious plot that only you, and maybe Tom DiNapoli's flack, recognize. Not even Wayne Barrett, one of the Left's most venerated investigative reporters, and a man from whom you've lifted entire paragraphs to support this fantasy.
In fact, Barrett, when describing Harry Wilson's success in saving hundreds of thousands of American jobs, said, "he may have accomplished more in his six-month stint on Rattner's "Team Auto" than others do in lifelong public service careers". Not exactly the condemnation one would conclude from your selected quotes.
So next time maybe offer your readers a link to Wayne Barrett's article from which you cherry pick :
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared…
You're free to admit you don't like rich people, especially Republican rich people, but don't wrap your cheap shot at Harry Wilson in the lofty concept of defending the social contract.
Re: “Who Is This Republican Comptroller Candidate the Times Just Endorsed?”
This is one of the most balanced articles I've read on the subject. I'm going with Wilson because we always talk about someone from the private sector stepping up like the founding fathers envisioned ( when the founding mothers were home getting shit done)and Wilson has. For that alone he gets my vote.
However - I don't care if Tom DiNapoli were Nelson Mandela, George Bailey and Captain Kangaroo all in one. The sleazy way awful, terrible, just bad, Sheldon Silver appointed DiNapoli disqualifies him. DiNapoli should have done the right thing and turned him down.
Now DiNapoli should pay for that dirty deal on Election Day.
