The State of the State was slightly lengthy yesterday afternoon, but it still missed out on a lot. Reforming the government and all that goo goo's want were not mentioned even once. The topic used to be something the Governor cared about when he represented Harlem. Now he completely forgot about it. Blair Horner of NYPIRG certainly saw it and so did many others.
From The NY Times:
The Governor did talk about reform in other ways, such as for the Rockefeller Drug Laws and how Medicare and Medicaid is distributed. He did have plenty of good ideas in that speech. Yet, if we do not work to fix the broken system, the worst in all the land, then none of those good ideas are going to have as much an impact as they could. New Yorkers want better times just as much as Paterson, but if we do not have trust and faith in our government then getting to the promised land is going to be a much more arduous journey than it needs to be.
The most glaring omission was any plan for real political reform. He did not mention the need to change the campaign finance system or the scandalous way legislators draw their own districts. This was a missed opportunity in an otherwise promising summons to confront New York’s historic challenges.
Tell the Governor we need campaign finance reform now. The cost of such a program is minuscule compared to some of his other policies (even in these hard times) and the benefits pay out exponentially over time.
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