Giuliani Blog Tracking the likely Presidential candidacy of Rudy Giuliani

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Goodbye, George

Pataki’s history makes him history

This column is designed to drive the final railroad spike into the coffin of George Elmer Pataki’s presidential ambitions.

The Empire State’s drowsy Republican governor drifts off January 1 after 12 years in office. He departs about 11 years too late. Pataki is less than just a politician of breathtaking mediocrity; his lack of competence, charisma, and character composes a sickening trifecta that actually has led some local Republicans to look with hope at Governor-elect Elliot Spitzer, a busybody liberal Democrat.

As the curtain creaks down on Pataki’s seemingly endless Broadway run, it is vital to this Republic’s health that his threatened national roadshow go nowhere.

Five years after 9/11, the former World Trade Center remains an excruciating chasm. “Al-Canyon” is a dual testament to al Qaeda’s urban-redesign skills and Pataki’s lack thereof. As the man responsible for transforming Ground Zero from a five-story-deep national tear duct into a symbol of American renaissance, this site only now is emerging from the post-September-11 dark ages. Pataki’s indecision and dithering delayed concrete from being poured for the Freedom Tower’s foundation until November 18 — five years and nine weeks after Islamo-fascists demolished the Twin Towers.

Pataki’s Pit perfectly symbolizes a governorship darkened by profligacy, debt, patronage, and influence peddling. This black hole must not be allowed to swallow Iowa, New Hampshire, or any other primary state.

Pataki, nevertheless, was in the Granite State recently when he told Fox News’ Carl Cameron:

Republicans don’t get elected by going on spending binges that result in a growth of government spending that is not sustainable and more than the people want. I think we did get away in Washington from those principles that Republicans believe in — limited government, controlling spending, cutting taxes.
How rich. If only Pataki had heeded himself.

To his credit, Pataki initially cut taxes.

“Among his leading first-term accomplishments were his $3 billion, 25 percent income-tax cut and a substantial cut in the capital gains tax and inheritance tax,” states the Cato Institute’s “Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors: 2006.” However, in his second term, Pataki “raised the cigarette tax to $1.50 per pack. He raised taxes on net, by more than $3 billion his final term in office.”

As Pataki’s reign of error ends, New York is No. 50 in the Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index. It also has America’s 50th best individual state-tax burden, and is the 47th-best place to pay unemployment insurance.

Under Pataki, the state budget has soared 79.5 percent — from $63.3 billion in 1994 to $113.6 billion in 2006. Pataki’s 12-year-average annual spending rate is 4.9 percent.

“Pataki’s budgets grew by almost twice as much as inflation,” says Cato Institute fiscal analyst Stephen Slivinski. In Pataki’s third term, this spending pace zoomed to 8.3 percent. In Cato’s latest gubernatorial report card, Pataki’s financial mismanagement earned him a D.

Pataki has borrowed like a pawnshop patron. He has deepened state-funded debt by 61.3 percent — from $31 billion in 1994 to $50 billion today.

Public-health costs are yet another fiasco. Pataki currently stars in local TV commercials in which he encourages people to apply for Child Health Plus (CHP), a state Medicaid program. Such ads, in which Pataki has appeared since 2002, have worked. Even as just-released Census estimates show New York’s population grew just 0.72 percent between July 1, 2002 and July 1, 2006 (from 19,167,600 to 19,306,183), state Medicaid enrollees accelerated 18.3 percent (from 3,568,627 in June 2002 to 4,222,748 in June 2006). Participants in Family Health Plus, another Medicaid subsidy, rocketed from 2,864 in January 2002 to 563,100 last January — a 19,561 percent ascent. Medicaid is swallowing the state budget like a killer whale devouring a walrus. And yet Pataki’s ads stimulate that whale’s appetite.

Pataki has transformed Medicaid from low-income health care into a recipe for middle-class welfare dependency. Former Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo inaugurated CHP in 1992. A family of four in 1998 could make no more than $35,631 for its kids to qualify. Under Pataki, that ceiling has risen 40.3 percent since then, to $50,000 today.

Even worse, recent estimates show that perhaps 40 percent of New York’s $46.6 billion Medicaid budget (up 93.4 percent from $24.1 billion in 1994) funds questionable and fraudulent claims. This $18.6 billion deadweight loss previously has subsidized such worthies as a Brooklyn dentist who, on one day in 2003, charged Medicaid for 991 procedures. Such news makes Pataki yawn.

Greater insistence on Medicaid’s integrity might have made Pataki collide into his pal, Dennis Rivera, a board member of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition and president of United Healthcare Workers East, Local 1199. This 285,000-member union backed Pataki in 2002. In exchange, Pataki gave Rivera’s then-200,000 New York-State-based members a three-year, $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded pay hike. (Local 1199 has 250,000 NYS-based members today, in addition to workers it represents in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C.)

Pataki’s pay-to-play apparatus is like an old Automat restaurant: cash in, goodies out. In one egregious example, attorney general Spitzer found that, in 2001, the New York State Canal Corporation gave Richard A. Hutchens information that helped him score a non-competitive bid to construct $21.7 million in housing along the Erie Canal. These rights cost him just $30,000 — a potential 72,233 percent return on investment. As it happens, Hutchens gave Pataki’s campaign $8,000. “Everybody makes a political contribution for a purpose,” Hutchens told investigators.

“George Pataki turned the New York GOP into a machine devoted exclusively to the empowerment and enrichment of his coterie,” the New York Post’s Eric Fettman observed. “There’s nothing left that even resembles a genuine infrastructure capable of recruiting candidates with strong statewide appeal.” As Fettman predicted last February 21, this “leaves the party facing likely statewide disaster.”

November 7 indeed was a disaster for the Empire State GOP. This, however, was no surprise. Terrified of being upstaged by potential candidates with actual talent, Pataki instead has boosted hacks, losers, and also-rans.

In 2004, Pataki’s pick — invisible state assemblyman Howard Mills — vanished anew after winning a state-record-low 24 percent against Democratic senator Charles Schumer. This year, Pataki short-circuited a promising U.S. Senate challenge by conservative Manhattan attorney Ed Cox in favor of Westchester prosecutor Jeanine Pirro. She stumbled, switched races, and then garnered just 40 percent against attorney-general-elect Andrew Cuomo. With Cox on blocks, former Yonkers mayor John Spencer captured 31 percent against Democratic senator Hillary Clinton. Such horribly squandered opportunities have denuded Albany of statewide GOP officials. Beyond Michael Bloomberg, the Big Apple’s nominally Republican mayor, elephants approach extinction here, thanks to Pataki’s pachydermocidal “party-building.”

As former Republican National Committeewoman Georgette Mosbacher told the Post’s Fred Dicker: “Our New York party leaders have tried to be everything to everybody, and what’s now happened to us is that we’ve become nothing to everyone.”

Despite all this, Republicans across America have told me, “Rudy Giuliani’s a big liberal, but at least Pataki’s a conservative.” After dropping my drink, I patiently explain that this inverts reality. While Pataki built government like a carpenter on steroids, Giuliani curbed Gotham’s tax burden by $8 billion or 19 percent; cut real, year-on-year outlays in two of his eight budgets; and, by Cato’s calculations, kept annual average spending at 2.9 percent vs. Pataki’s 5.9 percent his last eight years. (Giuliani maintained outlays below his tenure’s 3.6 percent inflation rate.) Giuliani’s production, not Pataki’s, deserves a coast-to-coast tour.

So far, Pataki cannot impress even his neighbors. According to an October 1 Strategic Vision poll, 50 percent of New Jersey Republicans favor Giuliani for president while only 1 percent want Pataki in the White House. What a humiliating performance for the governor of a contiguous state whose citizens have been bathed for 12 years in commercials and news stories on Pataki, courtesy of New York’s media.

“Pataki is prepared to give the nation what he gave New York: out-of-control spending, corruption, political favoritism, and neglect,” warns Hudson Institute president Herbert London, a veteran Gotham conservative activist. “To suggest that the last 12 years of his leadership were a failure would be a grotesque understatement. Pataki is an anchor around the ship of state, drowning residents in debt and special favors.”

Drowning, indeed. George Elmer Pataki’s presidential dreams merit a pair of cement shoes and a non-stop trip to the bed of the Hudson River.

-Deroy Murdock
____________________
This article originally appeared in The National Review Online on December 22nd, 2006. It is reprinted here with the author’s permission

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10 Comments:

At 9:24 AM, Blogger NYer said...

Rudy was an ok mayor whose time had run out right before 9/11. He would not have been reelected if he was allowed to run had their been no 9/11. He is an egotistical person who only cares about getting name recognition and credit to himself see Bratton. Poor lil Rudy couldn't stand that someone else was on Time's cover. Rudy had nothing to do with comstat which was the major reason for crime falling in NYC. As for shady deals all one has to do is look at his administration and take your pick of criminals. Better yet look at his right hand man Kerik. Taking shots at Pataki and Bloomberg is pretty pathetic coming from Giuliani's side. Maybe they didn't know that that Pataki and Bloomberg actually did something positive for NY and didn't constantly set out to divide it. By the way what ever happened to Rudy's cousin who he married but didn't know it was his cousin did she get a Christmas card from Rudy this year?

 
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At 9:24 AM, Blogger yirigol said...

If you are SSC examinee of Dhaka Board and looking for SSC result of Dhaka board then you are in the perfect place. In this article, we will try to cover all the possible way to get SSC result Dhaka board 2020. Read the content carefully to know how to get SSC result Dhaka board.

SSC Result 2020 Rajshahi Board will Publish under the Bangladesh Education Board of Rajshahi Computer Center. The SSC Results Rajshahi Board and Result related all data will available on here. And also on the Board of Intermediate and Secondary, Rajshahi.

Barisal Board SSC results 2020 will be published here. I discuss all about the results and the board. Barisal Board is the authority of secondary and higher secondary educational institutions in Barisal. It controls them following rules and regulation of Education Board of Bangladesh.

Jessore Board SSC Result 2020 will be published very soon. SSC Exam means Secondary School Certificate Examination. It is also a public examination which has taken by students of Secondary Schools in Bangladesh. There are eight general educations Board in Bangladesh.

But unfortunately, most of the Muslim children go to general education from their childhood instated of Madrasah education. So, Details of Dakhil Result 2020 is shared below.

Yes, it is the right place to know Chittagong Board SSC result 2020. Every year the Education Board of Bangladesh conducts the exam of SSC at the month of February to March and the exam result has to publish in every month of May.

SSC Result BD is near to the door. It is very important for the students of SSC Exam, Dakhil Exam, and Vocational Examination in 2020. SSC stands for Secondary School Certificate which is the most significant for every student. Though it is the third board exam of a student it still has the most significant on a student’s life. Before the 2013 SSC Exam was the first board exam on a student’s life.

SSC Result Sylhet Board 2020 will be published very soon. SSC Exam means Secondary School Certificate Examination. It is also a public examination which has taken by students of Secondary Schools in Bangladesh.

 
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Looking for SSC Result Mymensing board 2020, SSC Result 2020 Publish Date by Mymensing Board, Mymensing Board SSC result by Message, SSC Result Mymensing Board 2020 Check Online and Android Mobile Apps then you are the right place.

Are you fond of Mobile and want to get your SSC Result by SMS? Do you want to know how to get SSC Exam Result by Mobile SMS? Here you can know the details.

Are you are student of technical Education board and looking for Bangladesh Technical Boaord SSC Result 2020? Here you can find your desired information about SSC Exam Result.

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SSC Result By EIIN: EIIN refers to Educational Institute Identification Number. Every school and college has its own EIIN Number. One can get all the information and JSC, SSC & HSC Result by this EIIN Number. If anyone wants to all the SSC results of any school then he/she can try the SSC Result EIIN Method.
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