Given the title of this article, it would be perfectly reasonable to think we are referring to the tribulations of Governor Northam of Virginia. After all, in rapid succession he made a disastrous public statement about a new late-term abortion law making its way through the Virginia legislature and followed that up with a forced admission that he dressed up in “black face” at a party in medical school. It really has been a bad stretch for him in the last few weeks.
But in our opinion, another Governor is dealing with an even worse sequence of events in the last 30 days. In a recently released Siena College poll, the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, has now dropped to his lowest job approval rating in his eight years as Governor. His downfall has not been as widely reported by the major media as have the exploits of the Virginia Governor. This is in part because the Virginia Governor’s story is more salacious. And one wonders whether the fact that the brother of the New York Governor (Chris Cuomo) happens to host the most popular news program on CNN has any influence on that lack of coverage. To be fair, a few of Governor Cuomo’s recent problems were outside of his control. However, he could have done a much better job of not piling on top of them with issues that were in his control. Here’s our take:
1/22/2019 – Governor Cuomo signs the New York “Reproductive Health Act”
Governor Cuomo had signaled his intent to sign this deplorable legislation permitting late term abortions some time ago, so the actual application of his signature didn’t itself create a real news event. What did create a news event was the over-the-top giddy jubilance on public display after the signing. Believing that most people seeing this bill become law would be equally as celebratory as the politicians who created it was a huge misread by the Governor and others. He completely miscalculated how strong and effective the religious conservative rebuke would be, not only to the law itself but especially to his “rub-it-in” festive activities after the signing. That had an immediate widespread effect across most of the country (far beyond just New York) and set up a powder keg for Virginia that Governor Northam walked right into and set aflame.
1/23/2019 – Governor Cuomo announces he intends to sign the New York “DREAM Act”
Among other things, this piece of legislation will provide college tuition assistance for illegal aliens living in New York. That financial assistance would come via taxpayer dollars from citizens of New York. The Governor enthusiastically announced his support and intent to sign this legislation. While the Governor may have seen a side benefit in his public support of this “Dream Act” as a jab at President Trump in the heat of the border funding battle, spending taxpayer money in this way didn’t compute with his next problem less than two weeks later…
2/4/2019 – Governor Cuomo announces a $2.3 billion shortfall in the state’s budget
This has much greater significance than does a federal budget shortfall, since the Governor of the State of New York is constitutionally required to submit a balanced budget and the New York state legislature is legally required to pass a balanced budget. The Governor chose to blame his shortfall on the new federal tax law which limits the amount of state income tax that can be used as a deductible expense on the federal return. In and of itself, the new federal tax law has nothing directly to do with state tax revenue for New York or any other state. However, a potential indirect effect on New York state tax revenue could occur if high-income earners choose to leave New York and establish residency in a state with lower (or zero) state income tax. This is exactly what happened. The new federal tax law was passed over a year ago and this possible ramification was by no means “new” information to the Governor as he subtly implied when he cast the blame. But what really made news with this event was the following statement from the Governor which likely went against every democrat bone in his body as he was speaking it: “This is the flip side. Tax the rich, tax the rich, tax the rich. The rich leave, and now what do you do?” That sounds much more like what a conservative republican would say. Was the Governor admitting that tax-the-rich policies simply don’t work? That could not have played well with his liberal-democrat base.
2/14/2019 – Amazon decides not to build its 2nd headquarters in New York
This was devastating news for the Governor who had spent a lot of personal time and energy to make the Amazon deal happen in his state. To be fair, Amazon’s decision does not appear to be directly related to Governor Cuomo’s actions and/or his behavior. In fact, the Governor put together a package that Amazon apparently found very sound from a pure business point of view. What Governor Cuomo didn’t count on, but probably should’ve anticipated sooner, was how effective and ruinous the far-left wing of his party was capable of being in this case. As they had already very clearly demonstrated on other topics, logic, reason and business sense don’t factor into their positions. They are pure ideologues, and he needed to somehow communicate the benefits of Amazon’s presence to them on their level. He didn’t, and they turned against him from within like an aggressive cancer.
All-in-all, a pretty lousy three weeks for the New York Governor. It was an even lousier stretch for those espousing the “goodness” of late term abortions and progressive spending policies. It also served as a dire warning that very undesirable outcomes can result from socialist politicians interfering in state business even in a state controlled by Democrats.