Pataki to veto budget reform
ALBANY — Gov. George Pataki’s office Monday signaled he would veto a budget overhaul bill lawmakers have said would improve timeliness, increase accountability and control spending and debts.
The measure also would shift some budget-making power from the governor’s office to the Legislature.
“This so-called budget reform bill is a transparent attempt to […]

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Albany ‘Crime Wave’ Seen After Charges Against Assemblywoman
The indictment of a Brooklyn assemblywoman, Diane Gordon, on bribery charges yesterday makes her the seventh member of the 80-person New York City delegation in Albany to face charges from prosecutors in the past three years.
It’s prompting some watchdogs to call for more policing of state lawmakers, who […]

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Reforming - and Not Reforming - the Budget Process
Each summer, State Assemblymember and Brooklyn Democratic party boss Vito Lopez throws a massive summer picnic, busing 4,000 senior citizens from Bushwick to Sunken Meadow State Park in Long Island for live music, dancing, and a steak and chicken dinner.
It is also one of the most […]

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Silver’s law firm seeks to represent people hurt at state parks
ALBANY, N.Y. Government watchdogs are asking why the personal injury law firm where state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver practices is pitching its services to people injured at New York parks.
Silver has a say over how state parks are run and financed.
But his spokesman says Silver […]

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The Saratogian - Chip-maker will be a huge help to the economy
The announcement that Advanced Micro Devices, the No. 2 chip-maker in the world, is coming to Saratoga County is huge, any way you look at it.
It means a huge number of jobs — well-paying jobs, the kind that enable the workers to live here, […]

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Put pork barrel spending up for a public vote — Page 1 — TimesUnion.com
Shame, shame on the Times Union. For such a prestigious arm of the media to have the colossal nerve, nay, the unmitigated gall to dare question the “pork barrel” spending (excuse me, that’s called “discretionary funds”).
Discretionary tends to give an air of […]

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More legislative giveaways
Albany cares only about re-election, not the citizens who foot the bills
This fall, state legislators will tell you they understand the problems of upstate and acknowledge that New York’s government is the main source of the problem and insist that they are committed to reform. The proof is otherwise.
In a decade when tens […]

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KILLING NEW YORK SOFTLY
July 5, 2006 — While the latest performance of Albany lawmakers was breathtakingly destructive on its face, the damage is even worse when compared to fiscal policies in other states. Rarely inclined to remember - or even to care - that the Empire State must compete economically with 49 other states, New […]

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Democrat & Chronicle: Editorials
Like New Jersey, New York soon could face a fiscal crisis
(July 6, 2006) — Tempting as it may be for New York state lawmakers to become smug amid the budget crisis New Jersey is confronting, there’s still little for them to crow about.
Actually, it’s beginning to look as if the legislative dysfunction […]

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Taxes are now defining issue
ALBANY - Attorney General Eliot Spitzer had already been on the defensive about his position on tax cuts. So when the gubernatorial front-runner got word that the head of the state Democratic Party had downplayed the importance of tax breaks, Spitzer tried to avert a crisis on what has become the […]

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