On Feb. 22, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, “There must be pension reform in the budget.” I couldn’t agree more, budget or otherwise, as I wrote in my last column, “Cuomo mandates reform of $140 billion state pension system.”
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Hal Peterson
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3/14/12
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On Jan. 14, the New York Times reported that “President Obama on Friday announced an aggressive campaign to shrink the size of the federal government, a proposal less notable for its goal — the fight against bloat that has been embraced by every modern-day president — than for the political challenge it poses to a hostile Congress.”
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Hal Peterson
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2/1/12
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“Saddened,” “upset” and “disappointed” were among the many dispirited words people used to describe Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s decision to veto a bill that would …
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Lee Landor
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1/11/12
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By chance, I happened to notice that on Nov. 9, The Huffington Post reported that a potential Republican challenger to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in a 2014 gubernatorial race, was defeated in his reelection bid for Erie County executive.
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Hal Peterson
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11/23/11
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On Tuesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law requiring that people with autism spectrum disorders receive insurance coverage for screening, diagnosis and treatment, announced New York State Sen. Charles Fuschillo Jr., who sponsored the measurement in the Senate.
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11/2/11
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It wasn’t that long ago when then Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking about the war in Iraq, repeated that old expression, “If you break it, you own it.” As Gov. Andrew Cuomo enters his second year in office, he will have to deal with the responsibility of owning a large number of state issues.
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10/27/11
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No one is sure precisely what the 2 percent tax-levy cap passed by the state last week will mean for Bellmore-Merrick’s four elementary districts and one high school district, but it could force the districts to cut student programming and lay off teachers in order to stay under the legal limit.
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By Scott Brinton, David Weingrad and Deirdre Krasula
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6/30/11
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State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos says he is optimistic that despite the difficult choices they face, this is the year when Albany lawmakers will finally make the structural changes to the state budget needed to rein in spending.
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Judy Rattner
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3/9/11
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I have to admit, I’m having a problem understanding how, in just 33 working days, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Medicaid Redesign Team was able to recommend 79 cost cutting measures to save $2.3 billion in the upcoming budget. I’ll address this concern from three viewpoints.
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Hal Peterson
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3/9/11
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My last column, “Stop playing games with the budget deficit” (Feb. 3) was written one week before New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli issued his analysis of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive budget draft.
The irrationality I outlined fell short of anticipating the following mea-culpa expressed in the comptroller’s analysis. “The SFY 2010-2011 enacted budget relied on $16.7 billion in non-recurring or temporary budget resources; and overly optimistic tax revenue projections, causing a dramatically worsened state structural deficit.” How dramatic? These tenuous entries constituted 30 percent of all the monies in the state’s operating fund.
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Hal Peterson
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2/23/11
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