But it is this New York Post story which will be deadly for any hopes he might have had to being elected on his own.
Gov. Paterson has secretly granted raises of as much as 46 percent to more than a dozen staffers at a time when he has asked 130,000 state workers to give up 3 percent pay hikes because of the state's fiscal crisis, The Post has learned.Ouch. Giving raises to his aides while cutting pay hikes for state employees. And while the state is facing such a fiscal crisis that he has had to propose all sorts of new taxes, he was spending money to celebrate Obama's inauguration.
The startling pay hikes, costing about $250,000 annually, were granted after the governor's "emergency" declaration in August of a looming fiscal crisis that required the state to cut spending and impose a "hard" hiring freeze.
One raise was approved as recently as last month - when Paterson claimed the budget deficit had reached an unprecedented $15.5 billion.
Disclosure of the secret pay hikes comes as Paterson is under attack for spending well over $20,000 in state funds on a four-day stay for himself and several aides during President Obama's inaugural last month, and for planning a state-funded junket to Davos, Switzerland, which he canceled only after his plans became public.Perhaps he doesn't really intend to run in 2010. The New York Daily News reports that he doesn't have any staff set up for an election campaign and seems basically clueless about what he should be doing to ensure his election. While there is something rather endearing about such ineptness about politics, I doubt whether New Yorkers will be overwhelmed in admiration by his lack of political skills. As much as we may deride political genius, voters tend to actually admire a guy who can run a good campaign. Remember how Barack Obama pointed to his skill in running a presidential campaign as proof of his administrative skills. What is Paterson going to be able to point to?
Andrew Cuomo must be chuckling every day as he opens up his newspapers to find yet another story about what a bumbler Paterson has turned out to be.
10 comments:
All pigs are equal. Democrat pigs are much more equal than other pigs.
He'd better appoint himself to fill that vacated senate seat now while he still has the chance (and a job)!
Considering California still doesn't have a budget due to the legislature running about near the Sacramento River with their heads on fire and holding baskets(recyclable of course) and hoping that the money, when it falls from the sky, is coming soon.
Aside from the usual suspects much of this mess is our current governor's and term limits. The latter has managed to create a merry-go-round of half-educated politicos that have so few marketable skills that their entire careers are spent preparing to find their next spot in a game of musical chairs for special needs adults.
And as to Schwarzenegger, I don't hear too many people arguing for a modification of Article 1 to allow him to run for president any more. But he certainly couldn't do any worse as a senator than the two empty suits (power suits) we currently have.
Besides Paterson only has to deal with a $15 billion shortfall, the piker. Our governor has to figure out a way to finesse $42 billion.
Correction: With all of the Change® going on within the Obama cabinet and the potential reshuffling of Illinois' stacked deck, I'd forgot that Kirsten Gillibrand had been appointed by Paterson to replace Hillary.
Maybe Gillibrand can go to the UN and collect on the millions of unpaid parking tickets, other fines, and interest accrued on the same, still owed by UN kleptocrats. It is money owed to the city of New York and to the state as well and in a way it would help her bring home the "bacon" considering that she didn't really get to add as much lard to the "Stimulus" bill as other upstanding Dems, like say, Harry Reid and his $9 billion LA to Las Vegas rail project.
Pat Patterson,
Did I read that right? Are you saying that TERM LIMITS are behind California's financial woes? Please bring me up to speed because I firmly believe that the longer an elected official holds office the more beholden they become to special interests and other corrupting factors.
Many have argued in California that because of the limits placed on term of office there is actually no incentive to limit spending because there are essentially no consequences. A state rep can vote for increases knowing that any dire results won't really show up until he or she has moved on to another office. It's now the new person's responsibility and of course he won't accept it.
The other argument is that we have managed to create a legislature that is not reflective of the best people of the state. Most trained in the state university system(2nd tier at best and some are simply awful) and then served as aides to other politicians while waiting for an easy district to open up. And the skewing of sources of campaign contributions from the Indian casinos and some of the specialized unions have simply meant that the legislature owes no allegiance to the citizens whatsoever.
In a way, without the oil, California has become like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela or any of the other commodity nations where the citizens don't really have to be consulted as they are not who gets the politician elected but rather simply sources of payback for the investment the donors have made.
It is truly hard to believe that California was actually better off before term limits when the rarity was a late budget or even a budget that called for some borrowing. Both lateness and borrowing are simply normal now. Another bitter pill is that Gray Davis was recalled because of a ballooning budget while the current governor has increased the budget at even a faster pace.
Pat,
I was wondering how California felt about Gray Davis now. Arnold started out well, but the realities of the state legislature soon had him stopped cold.
It is probably the same with Obama. His biggest problem is the Democratic legislature. The "not so much" stimulus bill is not what he wanted, but it is what he got. I doubt Obama wants a fight over the fairness doctrine or investigations into the Bush administration. But, he will have trouble controlling the egos in the House and Senate.
Rick
Paterson is also proposing a tax on internet porn. He proposes to tax every download. However, I think that the tax would be more effective if the charge was by the milliliter.
CW/chsw
Pat Patterson,
By my count there are 14 other states, in addition to California, that have term limits for state legislatures. None are in the same condition financially as California. That leads me to believe that California's current financial woes are not the result of restrictions placed on government, something I imagine you would also hold to be true.
If you believe that term limits aggravate the issue I'm also puzzled by that since you seemed to point to the low quality of the candidates and the way in which they move from post to post, so to speak.
We all know that "we get the government we deserve", simply because WE are the ones that put them in office but allowing them to perpetuate themselves indefinitely is certainly not the answer.
tfhr-There are only two things that a Californian politician will aspire to now; either a seat on a commission out of Sacramento or to be a congressman. Term limits has forced the hand of many politicians that might gladly be willing to stay in their districts and actually help the district. Now they must constantly be either thinking about reelection to their current post and positioning themselves for the next.
I'll use two examples, even though in hindsight I certainly would have opposed the former and did oppose the latter, Jess Unruh and Willie Brown. Unruh was the pivotal politician of the state during the 50's and 60's and in spite of the nostalgia for Pat Brown Speaker Unruh is the one who got the money for making Cal and UCLA (even though he was a Trojan) two of the greatest universities in the US and the world, building the state college system and overseeing the Master Plan for the freeway and aqueduct system.
Now Willie Brown certainly did many things that I disagreed with but he still got things done and within budget and on time. And much of this was accomplished because he was able to stay in office and acquiring the expertise and contacts to carry out his agenda. I won't try to say longevity is always good but it does seem that the calls for term limits generally come from those of us who are constantly left grinding our teeth after failing to oust the object of our dislike.
Whereas both Unruh and Brown attended repectively USC and Berkely graduating with honors and securing law degress both of the two recent speakers had fairly undistinguished academic careers safely hidden in either an extremely liberal school, Fabian Nunez and a complete waste of space by the current mayor of LA, Antonio Vilaraigosa, who graduated, barely, from UCLA with a degree in Mexican-American Studies (which means your options are limited to being a high school teacher or a local politician) and then proceeded to fail the bar exam four times. Pygmies stumbling in the footprints of giants.
But the main reason, coupled with the incompetency of the political class, is still simple. The population is not expanding and the economy is not growing. But Sacramento still acts like its pre-Jerry Brown and can spend more than it has because the state will grow its way out of deficits.
I voted for term limits but I would gladly vote to repeal them if the bill encompassed some kind of method for reapportionment that didn't involve simply slicing up mixed and contested districts to strengthen the hold of incumbents districts.
Sorry, I didn't answer your first question. Many of those states appear also to have strict budget laws, such as if no new budget is submitted then the previous one is used plus some percentage increase. And that these states still honor their constitutions and do not engage in deficit spending, not allowed in most states, and also turn in budgets on time. California also has those restrictions but seems to have excused any form of legislative misfeasance because of the "emergency."
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