HAHAHA… I don’t have to add anything to this. Great article and so true. It’s always someone else’s fault, Shelly Silver is omnipotent and a small g god in Albany, or is he the crime boss? I have a hard time remembering what exactly he is supposed to be.

Translation? It’s someone else’s fault we don’t do due diligence here in Albany. It’s someone else’s fault we don’t know the actual effect of legislation we pass. It’s someone else’s fault we give away the store. It’s someone else’s fault if our basic work product is shoddy.

Put simply, what we do here, if we get caught at it, is someone else’s fault.

Daily Freeman - Silver passes the buck

So, here’s the punch line: Speaker Sheldon Silver wants everyone to believe that it’s an actuary’s fault that he and his Assembly majority advance shoddy legislation and treat every day like the holiday gift-giving season and the taxpayers’ wallets like their very own re-election ATM.

When we last left Silver, he was supporting two bills sought by public employee unions that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said would cost his city as much as $300 million per year. Legislation supporters, citing the required fiscal analyses for such bills, said the measures - allowing different groups of workers to retire with benefits at ages 55 (!) and 50 (!!) - would cost nothing (!!!).

But The New York Times reported that Jonathan Schwartz, the actuary who performed the ostensible fiscal analysis, had been hired not by the Legislature, but by the unions seeking the legislation. Moreover, Schwartz admitted to the Times that “he routinely skewed his projections to favor the unions” and candidly referred to his job, in which he has analyzed hundreds of legislative bills, as “a step above voodoo.”

Caught in this fiasco for what he is - the emperor with no clothes - Silver now has withdrawn his support. But he would have us all believe that it’s the actuary’s fault that he and his colleagues routinely back legislation without giving a fig about its impact.

Here’s the statement Silver gave to the Times:

“In light of the statements made by Jonathan Schwartz reported today that he acted irresponsibly in his professional duties as an actuarial consultant, I have determined that the Assembly cannot have confidence in any of the fiscal notes prepared by Mr. Schwartz for legislation that is currently before us.”

Translation? It’s someone else’s fault we don’t do due diligence here in Albany. It’s someone else’s fault we don’t know the actual effect of legislation we pass. It’s someone else’s fault we give away the store. It’s someone else’s fault if our basic work product is shoddy.

Put simply, what we do here, if we get caught at it, is someone else’s fault.

We don’t buy that for a second.

A simple rewrite of Silver’s statement would get it right.

“In light of the statements made by Jonathan Schwartz demonstrating the state Legislature acts irresponsibly in its professional duties, the people of New York have been shown, yet again, that they cannot have confidence in any of the legislation ostensibly passed on their behalf by a cynical cast of empty suits who routinely sell themselves to lobbying interests.”