Budget plan closes deficit with no tax increase

Cuomo's grin broadened. "I'm hoping that this spirit of love and euphoria that I feel is infectious and grows and continues," he said. [...] Cuomo turned to Silver, his fellow Democrat. "We hope you keep feeling it," the speaker said to laughter.

Keep Gov. Cuomo's jocularity in mind over the next year, as you hear about the realities of the budget cuts. Ha ha, fewer teachers. Ho ho, fewer community programs. Hee hee, no extension of the millionaire's tax. Har har, har har.

But hey, he's building his reputation for a presidential run, and that's what really matters to most New Yorkers.

Congrats to the Albany area Mega Millions winners. Use the money well, take care of yourselves, your families, and your communities. Enjoy!

Miller regrets 'negative publicity' about his arrest

How long before we learn that there was something improper done during the arrest, which will conveniently and coincidentally impact the case against him ...

Traffic headaches around Albany Med not easy to cure

Who would have thought that building in the style of a suburban office park, in the middle of the city, would result in traffic problems?

Note that the following words do not appear in the article: public transportation.

Lincoln visits Albany. The state government apparently fails to cover itself in glory.

Mesley. Mesley ... always around when cops are acting badly.

Headline: Ex-girlfriend of Albany cop recalls terror of gun threat

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Ex-girlfriend-of-Albany-cop-recalls-terror-of-gun-1004221.php

"Officer Christian Mesley, president of the Albany Police Officers Union, testified that he drove Schunk home to meet with Waters the night of the incident. Mesley said that before leaving, and while Schunk and Waters argued in a car outside, he took Schunk's loaded service weapon off a kitchen counter and disabled it by removing internal parts."

Mesley disabled the weapon. Super. He left a violent, crazed guy alone with his girlfriend. What? The guy couldn't have hurt her some other way?

More Mesley:

http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Union-chiefs-Words-hurt-553661.php

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Albany-cop-fired-after-arbitrator-found-him-604320.php#page-1

This post ...

http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/55298/after-election-gibson-softens-position-on-medicare/

contains a lot of gibberish. Some on the part of Rep. Gibson, some on the part of the TU writer.

Gibson: "In the past, I've been concerned about Medicare vouchers. What got my attention is the fact that two bi-partisan commissions supported it."

Supported it?

From the Bowles-Simpson National Commission on Fiscal Reponsibility and Reform and Fried Twinkies report:

http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/

"A voucher or subsidy system holds significant promise of controlling costs, but also carries serious potential risks. To assess the balance of benefits and risks, we recommend a rigorous external review process to study the outcomes of the FEHB premium support program to determine its effects on costs, health care utilization, and health outcomes. Although the population covered by FEHB is different from the Medicare population, if this type of premium support model successfully holds down costs without hindering quality of care in FEHB program, that experience would be useful in considering a premium support program for Medicare."

Vouchers now! Or, after a commission - not us, though! - examines some other system and everyone dozes off, and let's pretend we never even brought up vouchers.

Now, let's look at the TU writer ...

Vielkind: "Both reports mention moving Medicare from a fee-for-services model to a premium-supported model [...]"

In insurance terms, fee-for-service essentially means "not managed care." The doc gets paid 80% of his or her fees. A "premium-supported model" is a description of how a person would pay for his or her coverage in the system. So Vielkind is comparing apples (how docs get paid) to oranges (how a person pays for his or her coverage).

"Medicare really is sacrosanct," Gibson reiterated Sunday. "We need a bi-partisan solution to the problem. So when I hear two bi-partisan commissions talking about that prospect (vouchers), I ought to at least consider it."

"Sacrosanct" and "vouchers" are incompatible, despite what the GOP is trying to sell.

In this article - http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/For-starters-a-little-off-top-935393.php - the TU tells us that there is "a looming budget gap of at least $9 billion." And that "Cuomo's state worker pay freeze could save between $200 million and $400 million."

If I have all my zeros correct, that pay freeze amounts to 4% of the state budget deficit.

I think it's safe to say that this 4% of "savings" will dominate the media coverage. There will be talk about how Cuomo is battling the unions. There will be commentary by conservative PR firms and by randomly selected citizens who are willing to be quoted about high taxes and/or bloated government.

(I put savings in quotes up there, because it seems to me a poor assumption that taking money away from residents, taking money out of the economy, actually saves the state money. Less money in state pay, less money to the consumer economy, less money in tax revenue to the state. But what do I know, I'm just a layman.)

This 4% of the deficit will come to take up, let's say, 80 to 90% of the media coverage.

This leads to an obvious question. What about the other 96% of the deficit?

I should really know better than to read the comments section on the TU's political stories. It is no way a representative sample of the population. It's people who are politically engaged, and I suspect, people who are affiliated with the campaigns but who do not identify themselves as such.

Anyway. Since I already made the mistake of reading this one, I'll also comment on it.

Fred Dicker is not the issue. I don't care who he is biased for or biased against. Frankly, I don't pay any attention to the guy. It seems unlikely that Dicker himself had anything to do with any supposed out-of-line photographers, but I'll certainly reconsider it if turns out that he did.

The issue is, every one of us needs to think of a situation in which we might have a disagreement with a Governor Paladino. It shouldn't be that hard to come up with something, even if you support the guy. And in that scenario, this is what you can expect. Heated threats. A fat slab of a guy getting in your face and making you the issue, instead of whatever the original disagreement was.

If that's your idea of a functioning governor's office, then I'm not sure what is left to discuss. We're going to discuss issues after that? Almost seems irrelevant.

http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/32350/the-manhandling-in-bolton-landing/

Dear TU,

Your coverage of this gentleman's protest is very exciting. It really opens the door for coverage of anyone who pulls some kind of public stunt. Why, think of the copy you would get if a local person decided to burn a Quran! That would be very exciting!

Also, too, I really can't think of a more valid, important subject for a protest than whether or not a public figure appears on a media figure's radio program. It's a cause I think we should all reflect on, at least for as long as it takes to finish this sentence.

Kudos to the city for doing the right thing and firing Sgt. McKenna.

Arbitrator: Sgt. McKenna showed no remorse

Scorn on the city for apparently not paying attention to what other employees are doing.

Albany asks independent counsel to investigate employee

Albany Med aiming $500,000 to help city neighborhood

Master negotiator, Jerry Jennings:

"It's an indication that they want to continue to grow here, and we should do everything we can to make sure that they do," Jennings said. "We've got a state that's taking jobs away from here. And on the local level, I have not seen many institutions making a $360 million commitment.

"They're not obligated to do that," Jennings continued. "They could just pack up and grow somewhere else."

[...] And he cautioned lawmakers against sending the wrong signals.

"They're not doing anything (to help the city) by sending a message that we're anti-development," Jennings said, "and that's what we're doing now."

Apprentice negotiator, John Rosenzweig:

"What are we going to do" asked Councilman John Rosenzweig, who represents the 8th Ward off New Scotland Avenue, "impose a residency law on a medical center?"

Fellas. It's not like you need to be antagonistic about things. But are you looking out for your own city, or are you just throwing up your hands and saying "let 'em do whatever they want!"?

Never mind. Asked and answered.

That area is going to be a suburban office park, wedged into an urban area. It won't be walkable, it's not mixed use. But Albany Med and BBL get what they want, and that's what's important here.

Update: For *%^$'s sake, Jennings was an educator, was he not? Have someone edit your letters, dude.

Public pay, special deals

Mathes, who worked for 16 years as chief of staff to former Sen. Charles Cook, R-Delhi, said criticisms by Brodsky, who is running for attorney general, are self-serving. "He should come down from his ivory tower or from his sweet area of White Plains and see what it takes to make a corn field into jobs," Mathes said.

He said county legislators should be mindful that he has been offered much higher paying jobs elsewhere and the incentive pay was a way for the IDA board to keep him.

"They provided a compensation plan that rewards performance," he said. "Quite frankly if that performance structure was not in place I would not be here for the people of Greene County. Why should public positions always have to settle for inferior talent? Why should the public sector always lose their best talent because it does not have the tools that the private sector has?"

What are we calling this sociological and psychological phenomenon? This phenomenon where a person who is caught in stunning acts of greed responds by saying just how darn important he or she is.

We've seen Wall Street defend their bonuses after they set fire to the country's economy, we've seen rich people whine about paying a few bucks more in taxes and threaten to leave the state. And now we have a "public servant" talking about just how great he is, and trying to talk past the fact that public money is going into his pocket, as opposed to going to the community he "serves."

Whatever happened to shame? Or is it now part of American life that people like this just brazen it out and their greed will be silently accepted?

Just noticed that the TU is hosting a Teabagger blog. I'm very tempted to go into the comments sections and start throwing rhetorical haymakers. But no good can come of that, just wasted time.

If you've ever heard or read a teabagger, you've probably realized that their politics and their understanding of history are muddled, at best. Surely the TU editors have come to that same conclusion. Which leads me to believe that hosting that blog is a pretty cynical bid for blog traffic on the TU's part.

The Times Union announces an exciting new method for it to obtain content for publication without paying the writers of that content.

Venture promises a different spin on news

This is in addition to the 23,550 blogs that the TU publishes by non-staff writers, who also are not paid.

104th AD

McEneny

Terry O'Neill's Constantine Institute

Prep:

Breslin, Neil

Voelker

Weiss

Soundpolitic's Breslin post

TAP's SD-46 tag

Haven't brought myself to read this bit of excuse making from the TU

Aretakis and Burridge are out.

Freeman is out.

Sullivan is in.