http://www.dailygazette.com

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http://www.dailygazette.com

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Spitzer focuses on running agencies
Governor vows action on NYC needs, but infighting with Bruno continues
BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press

   BOLTON LANDING — As Gov. Eliot Spitzer shifted his focus Tuesday toward the management of state agencies and helping New York City grow as the world’s financial capital, he didn’t escape the continued infighting with the state Senate’s Republican leader.
   Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said Spitzer, who campaigned on the theme that everything changes on Day One, has accomplished little of note in his first six months.
   Bruno said the freshman governor has failed to revive the upstate economy as promised and held critical legislation “hostage” because of his “obsession” with reforming campaign finance laws that could erode the GOP’s narrow majority in the Senate.
   Bruno confirmed that he called Spitzer “a big overgrown rich kid” in an interview with the NY1 TV news station and that he said the Democrat sometimes acts out as a dictator might.
   “I think I said, ‘This is not a Third World country where we have dictators,’ ” Bruno said. “It wasn’t directed at him.”
   A transcript of the NY1 interview included Bruno saying: “He ought to understand that we’re not in a Third World country where he is a dictator.”
   As for Spitzer, he couldn’t help but mix it up after a speech to the New York State Broadcasters Association in which he reviewed his administration’s accomplishments.
   He noted that in six months his administration created or retained nearly 12,000 jobs upstate, gained legislative approval for $1.3 billion in property tax breaks, adopted a record increase in school aid, and reduced health care spending.
   But he blamed the Senate’s Republican majority for blocking more change in the last days of the legislative session, which ended Thursday.
   “The Senate did have time to vote itself a pay raise then leave on June 21 without doing the people’s business,” Spitzer said. He said he will go to Republican senators’ districts and play “Where’s Waldo?” by asking voters, “Where’s your senator?’” and imploring them to tell their legislators to “get back to work, earn your keep, earn your pay.”
   But Spitzer said he’s turning now to governing and part of that will be focusing more on major initiatives to improve air travel and the subways in New York City, which he promised will remain the world’s financial capital despite challenges from London and elsewhere.    “We are excited beyond words to get back to work,” Spitzer said shortly after a meeting with top staff. “The role of being governor? One small piece of it is dealing with the Legislature. The much larger, more important piece is to run the agencies. And that’s what we’re doing.”
   He also said he will continue to press for the issues left undone last week. They include approval of a New York City traffic toll system to reduce pollution, campaign finance reform opposed by Senate Republicans, and a capital budget worth as much as $1 billion for construction projects statewide.
   Spitzer said he wants the Legislature to return to act on these issues, but he doesn’t want to appear punitive by ordering the Legislature into session — “results are what matter.” Still, he wouldn’t preclude calling the Legislature back weekly if necessary.
   “If I have to do it on a weekly basis, I won’t hesitate to do that,” Spitzer said. “I’m not there yet. I certainly going to work very hard to work with the legislative leaders.”
   While Spitzer concentrated during his first six months on trying to revive the “economic malaise” of the upstate economy, he said the next six months and the 2008 legislative session will include attention to several New York City priorities.
   Spitzer said there has been “a failure to invest in infrastructure” in New York City even as its standing as the center of the financial world is challenged.
   He said the state needs to help create growth in the subway system to accommodate a rising population: “That’s what will choke us.”
   For example, he said he recently attended a groundbreaking for the long delayed Second Avenue subway, a huge congestion-relief project dating back more than 80 years, which was derailed repeatedly by one dire financial crisis after another.
   “It was a little embarrassing having our 10th groundbreaking, but we’ll get it done,” Spitzer said.
   He also focused on the planned expansion of Stewart International Airport in Newburgh to be a full partner in serving New York City while providing an economic boost upstate.
   “As I said earlier, the infrastructure of our subway system — that is one of the critical issues we are going to be talking about,” Spitzer said. “The infrastructure for transportation, energy, for [affordable] housing in the downstate sectors have been starved for capital recently so we have to confront that.”
   There was no immediate comment from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.  

  
  
  

Gee, Mr. Spitzer, where's our Democratic Senator?  You know, the one that wanted to be re-elected again (the same way it's been going since 197 so that he could "finish the things he started?"  Oh, that's right, he got another state job, pulling him out of the office.  Thanks for all the great work you're doing for us, Steamroller Spitzer.  

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But Spitzer said he’s turning now to governing and part of that will be focusing more on major initiatives to improve air travel and the subways in New York City, which he promised will remain the world’s financial capital despite challenges from London and elsewhere.  

Dont think this isn't part of the "war on terror".....

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Spitzer said there has been “a failure to invest in infrastructure” in New York City even as its standing as the center of the financial world is challenged.

If there are not alot of people living working and shopping in port/trade areas it is a weakness in a nation....port/trade areas are very important to any nations security and standing in the world.....soooo, here we sit again.....and those who 'control that area' are VERY important people.....just think of the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$

http://www.timesunion.com

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Spitzer has no right to ignore state constitution  
First published: Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Let me preface this by saying I am not a huge fan of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. And, as a general rule, I support the governor and his agenda (except his efforts to expand charter schools -- they don't work, are failing our children, send tax money out of state to unknown private investors, and bleed the taxpayers dry -- but that is for another time).
  
I am taken aback, however, by Gov. Spitzer's statement, reported in the June 27 Times Union, that he will bypass the legislative and democratic process and use his agencies to achieve his agenda.

What, the state constitution doesn't apply to him? Just who does he think he is? private Cheney? Junior? Addington? Rove? Libby? (Oh, never mind, they got him.)

CHARLES KEEGAN
Albany

http://www.dailygazette.com

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Spitzer vetoes binding arbitration expansion
The Associated Press

  Gov. Eliot Spitzer vetoed a series of bills that would have expanded binding arbitration in New York for police and other municipal workers.
   Among dozens of vetoes handed down Friday, Spitzer rejected bills that would have given binding arbitration rights to Office of Mental Health security assistants, downstate court workers and Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority police and firefighters.
   He also vetoed a bill that would have expanded the power of arbitration boards handling cases involving state troopers and another that would have set new requirements for boards for Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority officers.
   Spitzer said he was concerned about expanding binding arbitration, which transfers power from municipal officials to an independent authority. Critics claim that union contracts for police and fi refighters reached through arbitration have proved too costly.
   “It should come as relief to taxpayers that he did this,” said E.J. McMahon of the fiscally conservative Empire Center for New York State Policy.
   Some of the bills had previously been vetoed by former-Gov. George Pataki. And following Pataki’s lead, Spitzer also rejected a bill that would have given higher workers’ compensation benefits to privately employed medical responders dispatched to the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11 attacks. Spitzer said the measure would create an “anomaly” by giving those injured workers more than other private workers.
   Spitzer also vetoed separate measures that would have granted peace officer status to court offi cers in the Town of New Windsor and the Village of Westhampton Beach, Wayne County animal abuse investigators, Union College security guards and Jefferson County civil enforcement officers.
   Peace officers have legal powers to make arrests, issue appearance tickets and conduct searches. But a full-time peace officer requires no more than 35 hours training, compared to 635 hours of instruction and training for police officers, according to Spitzer.
   “These are very far-reaching powers that should not be granted lightly and should only be granted to those who have received sufficient training,” Spitzer said in a veto message.
   Also Friday:
   The governor signed a law requiring any state agency with a Web site to post information about New York’s Freedom of Information Law. Agencies will be required to provide basic information about how citizens can request information, such as contact information. Sponsors said state agencies have been inconsistent when it comes to posting information online about the law.
   A law signed by Spitzer prohibits “juice bars” from hiring nude or topless dancers under age 18. The bars — which are not regulated by the State Liquor Authority because they don’t serve alcohol — had been allowed to hire performers as young as 16, according to the bill memo. The higher age limit goes into effect Nov. 1.  

  
  
  

The PBA isn't going to like this decision by Spitzer.

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Spitzer said he was concerned about expanding binding arbitration, which transfers power from municipal officials to an independent authority. Critics claim that union contracts for police and fi refighters reached through arbitration have proved too costly.

Who here really thinks that he cares about the fact that the contracts go up too much when they're looked into by an outside group?  All this comes out to be in the end is that Steamroller Spitzer doesn't want the government to lose power.  He wants people he's paying to make the decisions.  Maybe so they can get raises if and only if the decide the way he wants?

Arbiters are still lawyers.....aren't they??? Just like lawmakers/politicians for the most part........

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Arbiters are still lawyers.....aren't they??? Just like lawmakers/politicians for the most part........

Yes, they are still lawyers, 1 point against them, but at least they're not lawyers on the state payroll.

Quoted from BIGK75

Yes, they are still lawyers, 1 point against them, but at least they're not lawyers on the state payroll.

It depends on whom they vote for.......

http://www.timesunion.com

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Spitzer, Grannis falter on lawn chemicals issue  
First published: Wednesday, July 11, 2007

As attorney general, Eliot Spitzer supported proposed legislation that would have banned toxic herbicides from being used to destroy lawn weeds. Spitzer also initiated several lawsuits to deal with misleading advertising by lawn care companies, and with overuse of lawn chemicals at public housing projects. He urged schools to stop using pesticides, particularly herbicides, on lawns and athletic fields.
  
Spitzer recognized these chemicals can cause cancer, Parkinson's disease and respiratory ailments for humans, poison wildlife, and pollute our air and our drinking water.

New York state Assemblyman Alexander Grannis co-sponsored the lawn chemical ban bill. Because the state Department of Environmental Conservation commissioner during the Pataki administration was reluctant to address these issues, Grannis also co-sponsored a bill that would give municipalities some of the commissioner's regulatory authority.

Although these bills died in committee last year, I hoped Spitzer's election as governor, and Spitzer's appointment of Grannis as DEC commissioner, would mean the state would finally take action.

Reintroduced this year, A.6045/S.3206 would prohibit use of toxic chemicals to control lawn weeds. At least 60 Canadian municipalities or provinces have already enacted such laws.

Two months ago, I urged Spitzer and Grannis to continue supporting this measure. I also requested Grannis to use his authority under current law to ban toxic lawn chemicals, and I requested Spitzer to issue an executive order prohibiting lawn pesticides and synthetic fertilizers from use by state agencies, parks, colleges and highway departments.

To date, no reply from the governor's office. The letter I received from the DEC's director of pesticides management makes no commitment to support A.6045/S.3206, or to do anything new to deal with these issues.

Continued environmental irresponsibility will eventually harm all of us.

JOEL FREEDMAN
Canandaigua

  

http://www.nytimes.com

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Spitzer Plans Major Push to Extend Health Care
By DANNY HAKIM
Published: July 11, 2007

ALBANY, July 10 — Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s administration is poised to begin an ambitious and potentially expensive push to expand health coverage to nearly three million more residents, aiming to fulfill Mr. Spitzer’s campaign promise to ultimately provide universal insurance.

A Mellower Spitzer Emerges, Playing Down Bruno Feud (July 11, 2007) Many details of the plan will be settled over the coming months, but a major component would expand existing programs for the poorest residents to cover more of the working poor and lower middle class.

Asked how much the expansion might cost, administration officials cited a recent study saying universal coverage could cost the state $3 billion to $6.2 billion annually, but could also reduce costs for employers.

Mr. Spitzer has directed the health commissioner and the insurance superintendent to draw up a plan by next summer for providing universal coverage, the governor and top officials said on Tuesday in interviews, though they cautioned that it would take several years to carry out.

Mr. Spitzer is aiming to reduce the roughly 2.8 million uninsured residents by half in his four-year term, following up on a campaign pledge, and eventually to provide coverage to all residents.

The administration wants to avoid some of the problems that have plagued similar attempts in Massachusetts and a number of other states that are expanding health coverage. Since New York has a larger uninsured population than many other states, it could have more obstacles to overcome. Approximately 15 percent of the state’s population lacks health insurance.

“We’re being practical and pragmatic rather than making a sweeping rhetorical flourish,” Mr. Spitzer said on Tuesday, adding that his efforts to cut Medicaid costs would help the state pay for broader coverage.

“I’ve always believed that when all is said and done, the cost of insuring all individuals will be less than the cost of not insuring them,” he said. “The unmeasured cost of the diseases we do not prevent, and the cost to society of the diseases we should be tending to but aren’t, outweighs the cost of insurance.”

For several months, three state agencies have been conducting joint internal briefings, officials said, and the administration is planning to begin public discussion of the issue by holding five hearings across the state, from August through November, that will explore approaches to providing coverage. The governor said that he would attend at least some of the hearings, and that high-level staffers, including the health commissioner and insurance superintendent, would probably preside.

This week, the administration also issued a formal request for proposals from consulting groups to study various universal coverage plans.

“That is going to phase in over a period of years,” said Dennis P. Whalen, the deputy secretary of health.

“A lot of states go out with a big glitzy press release and say, ‘We have a universal coverage plan,’ ” he added. “As we looked at those, they are all facing significant challenges.”

Instead, Mr. Whalen said, the governor is seeking a plan that will add more people to the health care rolls over a number of years — “foundational steps to march us toward universal health care.”

Each step would need legislative approval, and Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, is locked in a bitter feud with the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, a Republican. But Senate Republicans have close ties to 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East, the influential hospital workers’ union, which has called for universal health care.

And the Legislature this year already passed Mr. Spitzer’s proposed expansion of an existing state-financed program, Child Health Plus, which will make it available to the state’s roughly 400,000 uninsured children.

Senate Republicans have fought hard against health care cuts, rather than spending; Mr. Spitzer sought more than $1 billion in Medicaid reductions as part of his broader strategy. He had to relent on some cuts and ran into some of the same criticism that has more recently faced Pennsylvania’s governor, Edward G. Rendell, who also pushed a combination of universal care and cost cutting.

Currently, a family of three, for example, is eligible for the program only if its annual income does not exceed $25,755. Mr. Spitzer recently signed legislation opening the door to employers to buy into the program, a step toward further expansion.

Many of the details remain to be worked out over the next year, but the Spitzer approach is likely to have elements in common with the one being used in Massachusetts.

At the same time, data provided by the administration highlighted some of the challenges the state faces.

New York has more low-income and uninsured residents and a smaller percentage of employer-sponsored insurance programs than Massachusetts has.

“As a result, New York confronts a larger uninsured population, more of whom would require subsidies, and starts from a lower base of public and employer coverage than did Massachusetts,” Mr. Whalen said.

The public hearings will coincide with smaller private meetings the administration will hold with groups with a major stake in the issues, including businesses, insurers and consumers.

The administration appears to be seeking the more cooperative effort that characterized some of Mr. Spitzer’s early successes; Mr. Whalen said it was calling the effort Partnership for Coverage.

“We’re actually going to make it happen,” the governor said on Tuesday, seeming to relish a policy discussion amid continuing political battles.

He added that he wanted a solution that “sweeps large groups into the insured world with different mechanisms and structures and doesn’t try to wave one wand over the entire population and magically insure every person.”

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Asked how much the expansion might cost, administration officials cited a recent study saying universal coverage could cost the state $3 billion to $6.2 billion annually, but could also reduce costs for employers.

Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul......if we dont pay it in the cost of goods....we will still pay it in taxes.....

http://www.dailygazette.com

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Spitzer under fire for veto of welfare bill
BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press

   Advocates for the poor on Thursday criticized Gov. Eliot Spitzer for vetoing a welfare-to-work bill that would require governments to train recipients for higher-paying, “sustainable wage” jobs.
   The bill would have required local and state government to train recipients for jobs that pay $17 an hour or more and to seek training and openings for nontraditional employment, such as women trained for construction jobs. The Legislature passed the bill unanimously earlier this year.
   Federal rules require most welfare recipients to find jobs, which critics call a “work first” approach that emphasizes taking the fi rst job available. The bill sought to place the workers in jobs paying 185 percent of the federal poverty level, when housing, insurance and other costs are factored in.
   “The argument that Mayor Bloomberg and others made — that people have to take any job because they have to start somewhere and can move on from there — rings hollow,” said Rachel Morgenstern of Welfare Reform Initiative in New York City. “I have worked at Staples and other low-wage jobs. They seldom promote workers from inside,, and if they do, they still make less. Managers usually come from outside the company and with a degree or training.”
   The bill wouldn’t have allowed recipients to hold out for a better job but would have required government to develop a plan that focuses on better-paying jobs, said Mark Dunlea of the statewide Hunger Action Network. He said the failed effort may yet force improvements in the welfare-to-work education, training and placement programs in New York.
   “The poor people of the state need to see a governor who is willing to stand up for their legal rights so they can find employment and escape poverty,” Dunlea said.
   Spitzer said he agrees that “sustainable wage” jobs are preferred because they can lift families, often headed by women, out of poverty and break a cycle of returning to social services. But, he said, existing state programs already seek to provide better employment while reducing the cost of health care and housing.
   “Legislation is not necessary to meet these goals,” he said. “Unfortunately, this bill seeks to advance the goal of increased wages in a way that is neither targeted effectively nor administratively realistic.”
   The state Association of Counties opposed the bill.
   Among the hundreds of actions Spitzer took, he also:
   Vetoed a measure that would have provided workers’ compensation benefits to public and private workers and volunteers who repaired and cleaned vehicles damaged in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The bill would have provided special benefits to these auto mechanics, the way other laws provide additional benefits to rescue workers at ground zero.
   Spitzer said there’s not enough evidence to show “members of this broadly drawn class were exposed to the same health risks.”
   Approved New York City’s first “child care tax credit.” The measure will help low-income families with the cost of child care for children up to 4 years old. About 49,000 New York City families are expected to qualify for a $1,000 tax credit or, if the family has no income, a $1,000 check.
   Enacted the nation’s first airline passenger “bill of rights” by a state. It requires airlines to provide food, water, clean toilets and fresher air to passengers stuck on tarmacs for more than three hours. Airlines could face fines of $1,000 per passenger for failing to provide the amenities.
   The measure co-sponsored by Sen. Charles Fuschillo, a Long Island Republican, followed an eighthour delay on Valentine’s Day at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
   Vetoed a measure to dramatically increase fines for misdemeanors related to illegal shooting of big game animals. The bill would have increased the maximum fine to $3,000 from the current $500. Spitzer said the bill was flawed, but he instructed the Department of Environmental Conservation to propose increases to fines that could be presented to the Legislature.
   Vetoed a bill that would have prohibited municipalities from hiring private companies to replace fire departments and volunteer companies. Spitzer said this bill would limit municipalities’ ability to cut costs and even to serve the community during a shortage of volunteer firefighters.

  
  
  

I really don't care where the welfare recipients work just as long as the get off the welfare system and support themselves and hopefully someday the state will be able to lower our taxes a little.

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The bill would have required local and state government to train recipients for jobs that pay $17 an hour or more and to seek training and openings for nontraditional employment, such as women trained for construction jobs. The Legislature passed the bill unanimously earlier this year.

Good thing they're going to get free training to get a job immediately that pays $17 / hour.

I only had to work in the industry I'm in for 8-10 years before I got up to that level.  Wouldn't want them to work for it.

You really don't expect a person on welfare to wait that long to reach top do you. Many people are on welfare because it pays better than a real job does.

No kidding.  Maybe I should quit and go get a job.  Of course, to get into that, you probably need to have been fired from your last post.  Gross Negligence.

http://www.dailygazette.com

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Spitzer gets a breather from scandal
Governor tours state to announce new initiatives
BY BOB CONNER Gazette Reporter

   Gov. Eliot Spitzer spent most of last week out of Albany, going around the state to announce a few modest initiatives and fi nding time to sign or veto the last package of bills — more than 125 of them, mostly minor local issues — sent up by the Legislature.
   It was routine stuff, the sort of thing previous New York governors have done in the summer, and a far cry from the dramatic changes Spitzer talked about in last year’s election campaign, where he wound up getting almost 70 percent of the vote. For Spitzer, though, his agenda had the great advantage of keeping him mostly out of the public eye in the hope that the current scandal — or whatever you want to call it — will blow over.
   Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, RBrunswick, calls it a scandal and described it this way in an opinion piece published in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal: “Two close advisers to the governor apparently used the New York State Police to carry out a political smear campaign against me by creating documents designed to generate negative press reports.” Bruno’s characterization is based on a report issued July 23 by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.
   And the scandal hasn’t blown over yet. Last week, Albany County District Attorney David Soares said he would be looking into the matter, as is the state Ethics Commission. On Thursday, news broke that Darren Dopp, Spitzer’s communications director who was suspended because of his role in the affair, has hired Terry Kindlon, a prominent Albany defense attorney, whose clients last year included a Muslim imam accused of terrorism and a Bethlehem student who was convicted of murdering his father when he attacked his sleeping parents with an ax.
   The DA’s office and the Ethics Commission would have the ability to subpoena witnesses, which Cuomo did not do in his investigation, which broke the scandal but concluded that no laws were broken. Key Spitzer aides Dopp and Richard Baum declined to be interviewed under oath in that probe.
   Soares noted in a statement: “It must be remembered that while certain conduct may appear unethical or even immoral, the only issue for our consideration is to determine whether the conduct is of such regard that criminal liability can be assessed.”
   Bruno and others have questioned whether the governor is telling the truth when he denies knowing about the scheme to use state police. But if the governor has been truthful, then it is hard to see how he could be in legal jeopardy.
GOOD RECORD CITED
   That’s the presumption made by Bethany Schumann, a lawyer who represents Amsterdam’s Third Ward on the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors. “I have absolutely no reason to question the truthfulness of the governor,” she said, adding that he has earned the right to the benefit of doubt.
   Schumann also said her fellow Democrat Spitzer has a good record in government, citing increases in aid to upstate cities and the deal to keep and expand Beech-Nut’s operations in the county. The latter agreement, she said, turned “what was really an economic development crisis” — the departure of Beech-Nut from Canajoharie — into an opportunity.
   Some Republicans, too, don’t so far see political damage to the governor. Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, R-Schenectady, and new GOP Assemblyman George Amedore, who pulled off an upset victory in the 105th Assembly District in Schenectady and Montgomery counties in Tuesday’s special election, said the scandal wasn’t a factor in the Republican win. “It never once was a topic for discussion,” Amedore said, except when the media brought it up.
   Opinion polls show some decline in Spitzer’s previously high ratings. Perhaps more ominously, as a press release from the Siena Research Institute said last week, most voters who had heard about the attorney general’s report believe Spitzer “was aware of what his top aides were doing,” despite his denials.
   One of Spitzer’s major issues has been improving the upstate economy, and Schumann said she thinks his splitting up of the economic development team into upstate and downstate operations is the right approach.
   However, the annual membership survey of SSA, a small-business advocacy group, shows most responders having negative opinions about New York’s economy and prospects and little support for Spitzer or other state leaders.
   The survey obtained by The Gazette, due to be released Monday, shows most responders do not see positive change in Albany since Spitzer’s election. And while they do see the governor as focused on economic development, they think he is neglecting small business.
PROGRESS SLOWS
   Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, said Thursday in an interview on radio station WROW that the Ethics Commission and the DA should be left to get on with their investigations, and meanwhile the state’s leaders should “move on” to other issues.
   Progress on those issues has slowed. Asked to rate Spitzer’s performance this year, Matthew Maguire, spokesman for The Business Council of New York State, praised a workers compensation agreement that was reached in February. Asked what the governor has done since then, Maguire cited a one-year extension of the Power for Jobs program and an unsuccessful effort to come up with a power-plant siting law. He declined to comment on the state budget, which increased spending at several times the rate of inflation.
   On the left, Mark Dunlea, associate director of the Hunger Action Network, was upset about the governor’s veto last week of what advocates called welfare reform legislation that would have tried to place participants in higherpaying jobs. Spitzer’s veto message said, “This bill does not recognize the importance of securing employment even at a low wage and building an employment history over time.”
   Dunlea said Spitzer has some accomplishments in expanding health insurance coverage but has not focused nearly enough on reducing poverty.
   The ethics reform passed under Spitzer was widely seen as weak, and his latest campaign-finance compromise is held up, tied to other issues on which agreements have not been reached between Spitzer and Bruno.
   This week, the Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations will start looking into the scandal, a probe Spitzer has opposed. Silver, while saying he remains on good terms with Bruno, said that committee is the wrong forum because its majority members are appointed by the Senate leader.
   “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Spitzer said on March 29, as he wrapped up the budget compromise. Schumann said the same thing last week in defending the governor, and Amedore also used the phrase in acknowledging that he won’t be able to get everything he wants done as soon as he would like.
   In the campaign and the early days of governing, Spitzer suggested he could steamroll his way to immediate, radical changes. But the real world of Albany politics has reasserted itself, slowing the steamroller, and the pending investigations could stall it.

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The bill would have required local and state government to train recipients for jobs that pay $17 an hour or more and to seek training and openings for nontraditional employment, such as women trained for construction jobs. The Legislature passed the bill unanimously earlier this year.

Once these people are provided government paid training that makes them eligible for jobs that pay $17 hours or more per hour will they be permanently removed from the welfare rolls?  Will they be required to reimburse the taxpayers for the free training that they were provided once they begin to accumulate wealth?

Not to worry...they will then become state/public workers since there are obviously no private sector jobs in the state. So we will be paying for them right through their retirement. OR they will move out of state to seek employment.

Quoted from z2im

Once these people are provided government paid training that makes them eligible for jobs that pay $17 hours or more per hour will they be permanently removed from the welfare rolls?  Will they be required to reimburse the taxpayers for the free training that they were provided once they begin to accumulate wealth?

Hopefully they wont find aquiring wealth the only reason for what they have just received, maybe they will loose their need to carry a gun and volunteer somewhere and show up at their kids conference day, and stop waiting for that dirt-bag husband/wife to come back home......We can only hope since systems dont change peoples hearts... just circumstances are changed by systems.....so to make that kind of judgement the government would have to be God.....Either way, it's just 50/50, but to say "dont make an effort we will do it for you"....that just totally removes the brain from the equation......

http://www.dailygazette.com

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Welcome veto of Legislature’s welfare-to-work bill

   Advocates for the poor are mad at Gov. Eliot Spitzer for vetoing a bill, passed unanimously by the state Legislature, that would require county social services agencies to develop plans for welfare recipients, especially women, that would lead to better, better-paying (as in $17-an-hour) jobs. But it was a good veto. As a Spitzer spokeswoman put it, “The intent of the bill is laudable, but the approach is unrealistic for most clients.”
   Before the federal Welfare Reform Act of 1996, championed by Bill Clinton, there was no real pressure to get a job. It was enough that one was “looking” or involved in a training or education program, regardless of the chances of them sticking with it, finishing it successfully, or getting a job at the end. As a result, welfare benefi ts were seen as indefinite; generations were growing up never seeing a family member work, totally dependent on the state.
   Welfare reform turned all this around. Now, assistance is supposed to be temporary; people are expected to work, with eventual self-sufficiency the goal. But, recognizing that most entry-level jobs won’t provide that self-sufficiency right away, government continues to provide working mothers with such essentials as daycare, transportation and health care.
   The legislation Spitzer vetoed says that too many women are stuck in low-paying, entry-level jobs, such as bank teller, food service worker and home health aide, and never advance, thus not allowing their family to break the cycle of poverty. It calls for social services agencies to prepare them for technical and nontraditional jobs — like computer technician and electrician, and professional jobs like chemist, aerospace engineer and city manager — that pay well, with benefits and have room for advancement.
   That sounds wonderful, but what if the woman has no skills, experience or interest in such a job? What if not enough $17-anhour jobs exist in today’s service economy?
   Wouldn’t it be better for the woman to establish a work history and good work habits, and then offer her the opportunity to continue getting benefits if she wants to train for another, better job?
   Spitzer is right when he says the legislation seeks to increase wages in a way that is not targeted effectively or administratively realistic.

  
  
  

http://www.timesunion.com

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Unions Line Up Behind Spitzer In Troopergate
by Rick Karlin

So far, two labor groups have come out on Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s side in the Troopergate affair. Both the Working Families Party and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union have come out with statements in the wake of today’s Senate Investigation Committee hearing, urging lawmakers to esesntially move on.

Here’s what Working Families said:

“The Senate Republicans have the skills of neither Siegfried nor Roy. This hearing is about distracting us with the illusion of substance while real concerns – like paid family leave for thousands of working mothers and fathers – are ignored,” said WFP Executive Director Dan Cantor. “The lives of working people – including their newborn or adopted children — would be immeasurably improved if the Senate Republicans did the job that their constituents actually favor, instead of wasting time and money on a redundant investigation.”

And the Retail union President Stuart Applebaum:

‘’The hearings being conducted by the State Senate Investigations Committee are a distraction from the real work that needs to be done in New York State.

The men and women of the RWDSU who live and work in New York State need action not hearings. We need action on Governor Spitzer’s agenda – an agenda that the voters in New York heartily endorsed.

New Yorkers need our state government to focus on issues like paid family leave, strengthening the state’s economy and expanding access to health care. Instead we are getting grandstanding. We cannot afford delays and dysfunction when there is real work to be done.

If Republicans in Albany use these hearings as an excuse not to address the important needs of working people, that would be a tragedy for all New Yorkers. It’s time to get back to business.'’

A couple of thoughts here. Obviously these labor groups are anxious to see some progress on their push for legislation allowing more family leave, and there are a number of bills coming up next week that the governor must veto or allow to become law.

Also, it’ll be interesting to see if other unions join in the cry to move on. Not sure what groups like SEIU, 1199, who had heavy Repbulican backing in last springs health funding fight, will do, for instance.    

Now is anyone surprised that the unions are behind Spitzer?

Nope.

The dogs are guarding their bowls......and urinating on the fire hydrants......

I'm sure Mr.Spitzer has a 'treat' in his pocket

And I'm sure Mr. Bruno has an automatic cat box cleaner for all those fat cats in his "house".....

http://www.dailygazette.com

Quoted Text

Spitzer targets working poor
Plan aims to help families achieve ‘economic security’
BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press

   Gov. Eliot Spitzer on Monday detailed a plan to better help the working poor rise from welfare to the middle class, including lowering the costs and availability of housing and day care.
   Spitzer ordered 17 state agencies to team up to try to end what he has called a “perfect storm of unaffordability.” The Economic Security Cabinet will also provide ways to improve job opportunities, training and education for families to move from welfare to the work force. The aim, Spitzer said, is a sustainable job that pays expenses and help a family become financially secure.
   Advocates for the poor have long complained that government has done too little to bolster the working poor who, through extra training, education, services or by law left social services during the welfare overhaul efforts of the late 1990s.
   Spitzer’s attention on Monday was welcomed even by some advocates for the poor who criticized the Democrat less than two weeks ago for vetoing a welfare-to-work bill. That bill would have required the government to train recipients for higher-paying, “sustainable wage” jobs. Under the bill, local and state governments would have had to train recipients for jobs that pay $17 an hour or more and to fi nd training and openings for nontradi- tional employment, such as women in construction.
   Spitzer said then that the Legislature’s bill was “neither targeted effectively nor administratively realistic.”
   The Hunger Action Network of New York State had been disappointed by the veto, but applauded Spitzer’s action on Monday.
   “The state needs to be making better policy choices to truly build ‘one New York’ for all of our residents, including the working poor and working people on welfare,” said Bich Ha Pham, executive director of Hunger Action Network of New York State. “Almost a half a million people receiving welfare in our state have dreams of joining the middle class and becoming economically secure.” But she said too many aren’t able to benefit from education and job training.
   State data show there are about 530,000 New Yorkers receiving social services now, down from 1.6 million before welfare reform began more than a decade ago.
   “I’m rather encouraged by [Spitzer’s announcement],” said Jillynn Stevens of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies. She said, however, it should be expanded. “He’s talking about working New Yorkers who are not on welfare, but there also needs to be a meaningful intervention to help those who did fall into the safety net and [back] on welfare.”
   Spitzer said the special Cabinet will “make certain that no New Yorker falls through the cracks.”
   “New York leads the nation in the gap between rich and poor,” Spitzer said Monday from a Harlem job training site. “My economic security agenda is focused on lowincome, working New Yorkers who are one step away from economic peril, and who are neither firmly established in the middle class nor firmly supported by the full array of programs that make up our social safety net.
   “These families work hard and play by the rules,” he said. “They have done their part. Now we must do ours. “