On Saturday May 22, 2010, Democrat Andrew Cuomo the New York State Attorney General made an official announcement that he will seek the New York governor’s job once held by his father, Mario Cuomo. Below we include two links to documents released along with the announcement. The first link is to the transcript of the announcement The second is to a policy statement which he calls his “New York Agenda: A Plan for Action”. This is an extensive document which focuses on many areas including new education, environment, and energy.
The beginning of the “New York Agenda: A Plan for Action” includes a summary in the form of the following bullet points which collectively provide an overall picture of the agenda being presented.:
1. Clean Up Albany. We must restore honor and integrity to government, with tough new ethics standards, expanded disclosure requirements, independent investigators to root out and punish corruption, and an overhaul of campaign finance laws. We must remove legislative redistricting from partisan elected politicians and place it in the hands of an independent commission that works only for the people. And we must hold a constitutional convention – A People’s Convention – to rewrite the Constitution and make these changes immediately because we cannot wait any longer for the state legislature to act.
2. Get Our Fiscal House in Order. We must get our State’s fiscal house in order by immediately imposing a cap on state spending and freezing salaries of state public employees as part of a one-year emergency financial plan, committing to no increase in personal or corporate income taxes or sales taxes and imposing a local property tax cap. We must also eliminate mandates that make it impossible for school districts and localities to contain costs.
3. Rightsizing Government. Government in New York is too big, ineffective and expensive.
We must enlist the best private sector minds to help overhaul our more than 1,000 state agencies, authorities and commissions and reduce their number by 20 percent.
We must make it easier to consolidate or share services among our more than 10,000 local governments.
4. NY Works. We must make New York the jobs capital of the nation and get unemployed New Yorkers back to work. We will give businesses a tax credit of up to $3,000 for each unemployed New Yorker hired for a new job. We must also replace New York’s ineffective economic development efforts with a new strategy organized around regional industry clusters; reduce the high costs of doing business in the state; and support small businesses by increasing access to capital and streamlining regulatory barriers.
5. NY Leads. New York has been a national leader in protecting and advancing individual rights and safeguarding the future of its citizens. To remain so, we must protect a woman’s right to choose, achieve marriage equality, enact tough anti-discrimination laws,
truly regulate Wall Street, attract the best and the brightest to government, leave our children a cleaner and greener world, and continue to oppose the death penalty