It’s the new year, U.S. Congress has opened its 114th session and the New York Legislature is back in Albany to do the people’s work.

Your applause is deafening.

Most Rochestarians know that both bicameral legislatures — the state’s and the country’s — have been riven by everything from corruption to political paralysis to a debating style of governing that doesn’t suit the fast-paced 21st century. Failure surrounds them like a pea-soup fog.

That’s among the reasons the agenda for the state Legislature looks depressingly the same year after year. It’s not because they like symmetry in their work. It’s because these issues are never resolved, and some aren’t even worked on.

A look back at the legislative issues deemed important in 2011, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s first year in office, finds that too often, too little was done. What we got then, and what we’ve got now, are promises to fix the campaign finance system and to commit to public financing; passage of a strong ethics law covering all of state government, including elected officials; and tax reform to at last stem population and business loss.

Here’s what this page advocated in 2011 on the issue of ethics reform: “Cuomo is seeking (to) require lawmakers to disclose outside income and establish an independent body to oversee the legislative branch.”

Here’s what was effectively done:

If you’re seeing a blank space where accomplishments should go, you have the right idea.

Actually, state law now requires reporting of outside income. But it is far from air-tight. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is under investigation for doing just the sort of thing lawmakers were supposed to fix four years ago.

Tax reform to benefit struggling upstate is another perennial. What’s the record? Pretty pitiful.

Here’s what a Cuomo report on taxes said in 2011: “Local property taxes are higher in New York than anywhere else in the country. The median property tax paid by a homeowner in New York ($4,090) is twice the national median ($2,043).”

Here’s what was written last year on the taxes.about.com website: “The state of New York consistently tops lists for having the highest property taxes, income taxes, and sales taxes in the nation. In other words, New Yorkers pay a lot of money in taxes.”

Here’s what Albany commentator E.J. McMahon had to say last year about taxes after Cuomo and the Legislature agreed on a tax reduction package: “To reduce New York’s combined per-capita tax burden to the national average, as counted by the Tax Foundation, we’d need to cut the total per-capita tax burden by 20 times as much.”

Basically, Rochester and the rest of New York are in a deep tax hole and the Legislature is using a child’s play scoop to get us out.

The knowledge that every vote matters, that the public welfare is at stake, is one that should underlie everything the state Legislature does this session.

If that happens, politics may have to move to the side. The public interest will matter more, as it should. Good decisions will be made and next year’s agenda won’t look like this year’s.

A pipe dream? Perhaps, but the new year is the time for that.

© 2015 Rochester Democrat & Chronicle

You may also like

Gov. Cuomo’s Lawsuit on Pres. Trump’s Tax Cuts Dismissed

But according to the Empire Center, a non-profit group based in Albany, the overall impact of the Trump tax cuts actually benefited most state residents. Read More

Bill Requires Municipalities To Maintain Their Websites

Skoufis’ legislation references a 2014 Empire Center highlighted the poor quality of municipal websites many of which lacked basic information. The report found that less than 20% of local governments received a passing grade on their website’s availability of information and usability including two municipalities that did not have a website. Some of those websites have improved over the past five years, including Jamestown’s, which received an “F” rating in 2014. The updated city website includes all of the information Skoufis’ legislation would mandate. Read More

Comptroller warns of financial distress at the MTA, and the MTA goes on a hiring spree

According to Ken Girardin, a labor analyst at the right-leaning Empire Center for Public Policy, every new police officer will cost the MTA roughly $56,000, which means the new personnel would initially cost the MTA roughly $28 million a year. Those costs should rapidly increase over time, as police salaries rapidly increase. Read More

Albany’s ‘big ugly’ provides political cover, but has some benefits

“This has been one of the worst developments in the political process here in New York in modern history,” said E.J. McMahon of the fiscally conservative Empire Center for Public Policy think tank and a former aide to Gov. George Pataki. “It really is corrosive of accountability and democracy and, implicitly, the constitution prohibits it.” Read More

Panel at LIA meeting knocks state single-payer health care bill

"Ninety-three hospitals would lose more than 10 percent of revenue," said Bill Hammond, director of health policy at the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative  Albany think tank. Read More

‘Pork’ Bill Hangs Over Other Issues in Albany

E.J. McMahon, research director for the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative think tank, questioned the need for these projects. His organization found recent SAM allocations paid for projects he deemed frivolous such as a skate park and a local highway garage. “It’s this huge mutual back-scratching,” he said. Read More

Capitol pressroom

Former Assemblyman Richard Brodsky and EJ McMahon, Founder and Research Director of the Empire Center, shared their insights into the effects of the legislation and the political implications. Read More

UNFINISHED BUSINESS AS ALBANY SESSION CLOCK TICKS DOWN

Of the $508 million in pork awarded last year, most of it came from the State and Municipal Facilities program, which is widely derided as legislative slush fund, according to an analysis by the fiscally  conservative Empire Center for Public Policy. Read More