Cidu Bill on Mar 24th 2010
I was reading today how the New York State Assembly and Senate are just now finishing up their respective 2010-11 state budgets and how the two versions still have to reconciled and voted on. If this isn’t done by April 1, the state essentially has no money and state workers and teachers among others likely won’t get paid. The deadline is unlikely to be met, though, since the legislators start their week-long Easter-Passover holiday this weekend.
Now, here’s a goofy thought, so crazy that nobody seems to be mentioning it. How about… they don’t get their week-long vacation? This seems rather obvious to me, so no doubt I’m missing something — but passing a budget is probably the most important aspect of their jobs. You don’t go home leaving it undone.
I’ll take this a step further, which I wrote about elsewhere last year when the Pennsylvania Legislature was weeks past deadline in getting its state’s budget passed: If a state budget is one week past deadline, the legislature should be dissolved. Automatically. New election scheduled for one week later. If the electorate wants their old guy to stay on, then fine — but he has to earn back the remainder of his term. He has to explain his role in schools and state offices and parks being closed, and state employees not being able to pay their rent.
But this will be a moot point, because I can pretty much guarantee that no state budget will ever be late again.
Filed in Bill Bickel, New York, Pennsylvania, politics | 34 responses so far
Cidu Bill on Jul 18th 2008
The NAACP and David Paterson (New York’s first black governor) have entered the Condemn the New Yorker Cover Derby: The NAACP is calling it “tasteless, Islam-a-phobic, mean spirited and racially offensive” while Governor Paterson, not to be outdone, called it “one of the most malignant, vicious covers of a magazine I have ever seen.”
Out of, you know, all the very many malignant, vicious magazine covers he’s seen.
Now here’s the amazing thing about this story that’s garnered worldwide attention:
And right here I’m warning anybody who’s easily offended to stop reading
Last week, Jesse Jackson told a fellow guest on a television program — when he thought the microphone was off — that he doesn’t like the way Barack Obama “talks down” to black people and that he’d like to “cut his nuts off.”
This week, the network confirmed that he also referred to Obama as a nigger (I refuse to say “the n word,” because I’m not 8 years old).
At the risk of putting things in perspective, shouldn’t this have been a bigger story? Sure, it was reported, but it’s been completely overshadowed by a cartoon which nobody seriously believes was intended to denigrate Obama.
A leader in the black community calls a black presidential candidate a nigger… and a drawing.
I am not seeing worldwide condemnation. I am not seeing the outrage. I am not seeing Governor Paterson and the NAACP making speeches and releasing press statements.
Filed in Barack Obama, Bill Bickel, Governor David Paterson, Jesse Jackson, NAACP, New York, New Yorker, comics, political cartoons | 26 responses so far
Cidu Bill on Mar 17th 2008
New Jersey might exist in New York’s shadow in many ways, but never — never — when it comes to political scandal: Continue Reading »
Filed in Bill Bickel, Eliot Spitzer, New Jersey, New York, governors, newspapers, politics, sex | No responses yet
Cidu Bill on Mar 12th 2008
- The real fun will come when the IRS says “He spent $80,000? We never heard about that $80,000″ (see yesterday’s article)
Filed in Bill Bickel, Crimeweek, Eliot Spitzer, New York, governor, prostitution | 4 responses so far
