XPost: alt.politics.democrats, ny.politics, sac.politics   
   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.elections, rec.arts.tv   
   From: leroysoetoro@hrc-rejected.com   
      
   https://nypost.com/2018/10/17/one-party-rule-has-left-new-york-in-a-sorry-   
   state/   
      
   When it comes to businesses, the impacts of monopolies are well   
   documented. Lacking any of the benefits that flow from competition,   
   customers can count on paying higher prices for the privilege of getting   
   inferior service.   
      
   Alas, the same is true of government. New Yorkers know too well that a   
   political monopoly — one-party rule — yields some of America’s highest   
   taxes while services and results are mediocre at best. Think public   
   education and mass transit.   
      
   As Election Day approaches, those facts are worth keeping in mind — along   
   with another unhappy distinction. Two of New York state’s top Democrats,   
   Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, are seeking re-election   
   even as they dream of becoming their party’s nominee in the 2020   
   presidential race.   
      
   Leave aside whether their dreams are foolish fantasies. For voters and   
   taxpayers, the conflicts of interest between the jobs they want to keep   
   and their national ambitions are compounding bad government.   
      
   Consider, for example, what will happen if they are re-elected. Even   
   before they take the oath, they will be plotting a national schedule and   
   making fund-raising calls as the 2020 preliminary season gets underway.   
      
   As soon as they are sworn in to new terms in January, they’ll start   
   traveling around the country to drum up support for the nomination. If   
   they get any traction, they will travel more and focus more on national   
   issues and treat their day jobs as little more than taxpayer-financed   
   stepping stones.   
      
   Already, their conflicting loyalties are depriving New Yorkers of honest   
   services. Cuomo has tried to turn the Empire State into a lab experiment   
   for policies he believes will make him look good to national Dems.   
      
   Many of his press releases tout a “first-in-the-nation” claim, as if the   
   states are in a race for bragging rights, when that claim is in his   
   interest only. New Yorkers get no advantage from being first with policies   
   that waste money, as nearly all of his economic-development initiatives   
   have done.   
      
   Recall the tens of millions he spent advertising “the new New York.” The   
   TV campaign did more for Cuomo’s national name recognition than it did for   
   the upstate economy, unless you count the boosted bank accounts of defense   
   lawyers growing out of the resulting corruption.   
      
   Similarly, Gillibrand is completely oblivious to the biggest problems   
   facing New York. With the region’s mass-transit system teetering, she is   
   missing in action when it comes to solutions, despite being a member of   
   the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, which helps set   
   national transportation funding.   
      
   Although the metropolitan area has 40 percent of the nation’s mass-transit   
   ridership, it gets only about 16 percent of federal mass-transit funds,   
   according to Gillibrand’s GOP/Conservative opponent, Chele Chiavacci   
   Farley.   
      
   Farley also cites the federal tax bill as another area where Gillibrand   
   did nothing to help the people who hired her. Although changes in rates   
   and other factors will mean a tax cut for some 80 percent of New Yorkers,   
   limits of $10,000 on deductions of state and local taxes could mean higher   
   federal taxes for some upper-income New Yorkers. Yet Gillibrand voted no   
   on the tax cuts without engaging the White House. Her refusal to   
   negotiate, Farley says, meant Gillibrand put party loyalty and national   
   ambitions ahead of the taxpayers she ostensibly represents.   
      
   “Senate Republicans admit there was nobody at the table to represent the   
   high-tax states,” Farley told The Post. “There are no Republicans in the   
   Senate from California, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut — not a one.”   
      
   Meanwhile, Cuomo’s Republican/conservative opponent, Marc Molinaro, is   
   focused on Cuomo’s performance in Albany and argues that giving the   
   governor a third term would be a disaster.   
      
   “We need an absolute cleansing of state government,” he said in a recent   
   meeting with The Post’s editorial board. Molinaro, the Dutchess County   
   executive, says that if Washington is a swamp, “Albany is a cesspool.”   
      
   He cites what he calls the “death spiral” of the MTA, which Cuomo   
   controls, and vows to block any fare hikes or congestion pricing until the   
   agency reforms its spending and gets control of the mammoth waste on big   
   projects.   
      
   Anyone in doubt about the damage of pols who have lost interest in their   
   jobs need only look at Bill de Blasio. Mayor Putz is giving us a sneak   
   peek by spending all his time pursuing a spot on the national stage   
   instead of running the city.   
      
   Molinaro and Farley offer fresh thinking on old problems, but are fighting   
   uphill battles in deep-blue New York. Gov. George Pataki was the last   
   Republican to win statewide office in 2002.   
      
   That was a lifetime ago in politics, and the sorry results of the Dems’   
   rule are typical of what monopolies generally produce. If New Yorkers want   
   better service for less money, they need to vote for competition and new   
   ideas.   
      
   No horse sense   
   It is impossible to defend or adequately explain President Trump at times.   
   “Horseface” may be the ultimate case in point.   
      
   The president tweeted that word to refer to Stormy Daniels after a judge   
   threw out her defamation case and awarded him damages. She responded by   
   calling him “tiny,” which makes them even.   
      
   Except he’s the president of the United States. Yet after touring the   
   horrific storm devastation in Florida while trying to sort out the facts   
   around the murder of a Saudi journalist in Turkey and trying to keep his   
   party’s narrow majorities in Congress, among a thousand other things, he   
   celebrates his court victory by taking a dive into the mud with a porn   
   star.   
      
   Why?   
      
   It Warrents the shame   
   Most Americans were not talking much anymore about Elizabeth Warren’s old   
   claim that she has Native American ancestry. Although Trump was still   
   calling her Pocahontas, even the put-down had lost its novelty.   
      
   Until Warren’s giant blunder. By taking a DNA test and declaring it   
   validated her claim despite showing she probably had one Indian ancestor   
   as many as 10 generations ago, Warren revived the issue and even angered   
   leaders of the Cherokee Nation. They shot down her assertions of being a   
   descendant, saying it was “inappropriate and wrong” to use DNA tests to   
   cite tribal heritage.   
      
   The best summation of the odd debacle came from Megyn Kelly at NBC.   
   Warren, she said, “scored a goal against herself.”   
      
   McCrayzy expense   
   The most laughable of City Hall’s defenses for first lady’s Chirlane   
   McCray’s 30 out-of-state trips, at taxpayer expense, was the assertion   
   that a professional photographer needed to travel with her sometimes. A   
   smartphone and a selfie would be cheaper.   
      
      
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