It looks good on a campaign poster

Do you know anybody in NYS who doesn’t live in constant fear of losing their job? It seems the only storyline discussed at the middle-class dinner table is the impending cuts. If you’re in your thirties or forties, trying to raise a family and keep a home, your life is a perpetual game of Crack the Whip. Waiting for your number to be rung on the Andrew Cuomo Budget Cut Line. How long can our current Governor keep cutting people to make his balance sheet look good and build his resume for the White House? Have we learned nothing from the past? You can’t correct a deficit on the backs of the unemployed.

I get it. Cuomo walks the part, talks the part, gives the impression that his presence will return NYS to the Empire State. His predecessor Patterson, albeit a brilliant man, was a blind guy who was the punch line for more than a few SNL skits. So, in regards to how a Gov. should look, Cuomo is a homerun. But my God, all his admin. does is cut people out of their jobs by the basket load. Has he balanced the budget? Apparently. No new taxes. Who cares? He's annihilating every program. He’s annihilating education. The Nisky School District has to fill a six-million-dollar budget gap. Huh? I know, educators waste money, and teachers are lazy, and blah blah blah. No miracle results so cut, cut, cut? With that logic, doctors are bums because they haven’t cured Cancer yet, right? So cut hospital beds, and heart monitors, and surgical equipment?

Cuomo will tell you that NYS spends more than any other state on education and performs middle of the pack. 100% skewed. We statistically finish in the nation's middle because NYC is averaged in with the rest. You know, that city of 10 million, filled with more students of every nationality than anywhere in the world. Do you have any idea what it would be like to teach a 30-kid classroom in Spanish Harlem? Pass state tests? Speak English? If NYC’s millions upon millions didn’t count against the rest of NYS in education, we’d be number one with a bullet. And the $$$$ it takes to run NYC Schools. OMG. Name another state that has to shoulder that. But we do, which means another 100,000 teachers are hitting the breadline in June. Why? Because Cuomo thinks the few thousand jobs that Nanotech creates will be enough to run for President. Do you even know what Nano Tech is?

Let’s forget about the thirty and forty-somethings for a second. Do you know ANYBODY in their twenties with an actual career? Every twenty-something I know has a BA and/or MS, works at Starbucks and Cheesecake Factory. NYS College costs are more than ever and are netting absolutely nothing for its graduates.

Let me sum this up. NYers in their twenties are pouring coffee on seventy-thousand-dollar degrees. People in their thirties have either been cut from their jobs or are waiting to be cut, living in fear until that happens, afraid to spend money or grow families. In your forties: Probably upside down in a house that’s worth WAY less than you bought it for, working in any job you can keep. All this while our Gov. turns every issue, from Gun Control to Education, into a campaign slogan or commercial catch phrase. It makes you long for the days of Nucky Johnson (Thompson).

My advice? Hold on tight to your house and job while you have it. Because your Gov. is going all-out Chris Christie and plotting his Washington run on your back. But hey, whatever looks good on a campaign poster.

Read More:http://www.news10.com/story/20975127/niskayuna-may-close-a-school-to-save-money?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wten-localnews+(WTEN+-+Local+News)

Brian Huba
2.6.13