Governor Andrew Cuomo held a beautifully staged press conference on a tree-lined street in Pleasantville, NY  today to formally sign New York State’s new 2% tax cap into law. Normal Rockwell would have painted the scene had he been alive to see it.

The only problem with the event – and I don’t mean to sound too critical of the governor because he had a terrific legislative session —  is that the new law is a sham.  And almost everyone at the bill-signing event knew it.

The tax cap is like Swiss cheese.  It is full of loopholes that will, in effect, provide little or no real tax relief to struggling New York State homeowners. Pension costs are exempt from the cap, as are other mandates that are the key drivers of property tax increases.

It is easier to think of the tax cap as a spending cap. That is its true intention. With a cap on taxes, the logic goes, state and local governments will have to trim growth in their budgets.  But imagine a spending cap where the most expensive items don’t count toward the total.  Call it whatever you will, but it’s the same thing as having no cap at all.  You can call ketchup marina sauce, but at the end of the day, it is still ketchup.

Pretty bill signaling.  But the property tax crisis in New York isn’t fixed at all.  It won’t be until localities get mandate relief.  Let’s hope Governor Cuomo can deliver that next. Every homeowner should be rooting for him.

Mark Halperin inappropriately uttered the exact word to describe President Obama’s demeanor at his White House press conference yesterday on the set of MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning, and then, immediately, apologized.  The word should not have been used to describe the President of the United States, but I suspect it will stick, so suitably tailored to the President’s countenance these days it is. I won’t repeat Halperin’s word choice here, but the video clip can be seen here.

I am curious to see what happens to Halperin.  I don’t think he meant to be vulgar — just succinct.  But the line of decency clearly was crossed, even though worse words are routinely used on cable comedy shows today.  I suspect Halperin will have to be punished in some way, lest others begin to speak too freely, knowing that an instant apology will get them off the hook.

UPDATE: Halperin has been indefinitely suspended.

If you have ever been to Roosevelt Island – that sliver of land parked in the East River between Manhattan and Queens – it is likely that one word immediately came to mind: Government.

Roosevelt Island is the Brazil City of New York. It was government planned and government executed.  Its buildings are concrete slabs.  Its streets, sidewalks, and outdoor furniture are government utilitarian.  Plain drab sensible gray, with an occasional brown patch.

Sprinkled throughout the island are signs of what could have been – a beautiful 19^th Century Dutch church, sprawling green fields, ancient and interesting hospital ruins – the only specks of variety on an island in tragic need of it.  But there is one significant exception.   Everywhere – everywhere – are knee-bending views of mighty and towering midtown Manhattan.  Only government could have made Roosevelt Island ugly.

I worked for an elected official who represented the island many years ago, so I spent a fair amount of time there.  My job was to appease island residents who had become umbillically reliant on government services.  In an entitled way.   They didn’t request.  They demanded. (Although some were quite nice, especially the large disabled population.)

Roosevelt Island was built as a middle-class community.  And it largely is.  Apartments are tightly regulated and the layers of bureaucracy to get anything done are stifling.  That is one of the reasons why,  I suppose, residents have gotten used to haranguing elected officials for every little thing. Government is the landlord, the cruelest punishment for an artificially affordable place to live.

Roosevelt Island is run by Big Brother, the largely despised Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, or RIOC as it is commonly known.  RIOC members used to be appointed by Albany, but in recent years, island residents have democratically elected their own to the board.

The New York Times today reports on fierce protests on the island aimed at Governor Andrew Cuomo whose administration has reasserted state control over RIOC board appointments.  There is to be no Arab Spring on Main Street, Roosevelt Island.

What I find most interesting about this story is that Roosevelt Island residents – in a very Republican way – are yearning for local control after accepting decades of centralized largesse from Albany.  I can’t blame them.  I would, too.  But can they have it both ways?  Didn’t they cast their lots with government years ago?

And there  in Albany, Governor Cuomo must be feeling very King George III.  Ungrateful colonists.

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro reacts to news that

warm-up suits are 30% off at the Miami Beach Sports Authority as

protege Hugo Chavez eagerly looks on.

A report in today’s Toronto Star says John Lennon was a closet Republican, according to his former personal assistant.  I’m not sure I buy it, but it’s sure to arouse some passions among the Strawberry Fields crowd. Something tells me Paul will soon be chiming in.

photo from wnyc.net

I can’t help but revive this item from a few months back on the potential of Andrew Cuomo launching a new strain in the Democratic Party. “The Cuomo Democrats” the piece was called.

Cuomo, Quinnipiac just announced, is at present time, the most popular governor in America.  His trick?  He is a fiscally conservative Democrat executive — for now — which means he has thus far resisted union overtures to join their stable of lackeys. Other Democratic executives are sure to notice this model, but do they dare emulate it? (Blue Dog legislators haven’t fared well.)

It is yet to be seen if Cuomo remains fiscally responsible. The tug of the labor unions is politically gravitational. He may feel it necessary to bend in years two, three, or four as national ambitions supersede state concerns.

But for now, Cuomo is flying high among New York voters because of his combination of social progressivism and fiscal conservatism. Or maybe it’s his  demonstrated ability to get things done. He has broken the stasis in Albany.

I am delighted that the governor’s number are high. I hope they climb higher still. Because the stronger his numbers, the more likely it will be that other Democrats drink the juice.

North Korea is disintegrating in slow motion.

The biggest headline on the Hermit Kingdom today is the country’s womens soccer team losing to the Americans in a match in Dresden.  (The North Korean coach is dubiously claiming that his players were struck by lightning before the game.) But the bigger story is that Kim Jong-Il just shuttered all North Korean universities. The stated reason is a grand 10-month celebration marking the 100th anniversary of the communist regime’s founder’s birth, Kim Il Sung.  According to his son and successor, North Korea has now attained the goal of becoming “a great, prosperous and powerful nation” — as huge portions of its population starve to death.

The real reason for closing the universities is Kim’s fear that student demonstrations will ignite revolution in the country. Kim has a television and he has seen what young people can do when they get organized.  He also knows his population is growing desperate. More and more, according to reports, North Korean citizens are seeing smuggled video clips of what life is life outside their country’s borders, refuting years of propaganda and eroding faith in Pyongyang. That is a powerful incentive to rebel.

If history is any guide, hope and empty bellies will take the Kim dynasty down. The sooner the better.

This is rich.

Village Voice staffers are planning a strike.  It seems the radical newspaper’s current publishers are…businessmen. Yuck! They want/need to reform employee health care and retirement benefits. The 56-year-old leftist rag  has hit hard times in recent years, and, just like the companies and governments the Voice gleefully skewers in every issue, Voice management needs to trim costs.

There is no joy in the Voice hitting hard times.  Only irony.  Terrific irony.

photo by jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com

The most recent Marist Poll is out and it shows that fewer than one-third of Americans (31%) approve of President Obama’s handling of America’s debt problem. Sixty-one percent of Americans surveyed disapprove of the President’s handling of the deficit and eight percent are unsure.

I know this is a jobs, jobs, jobs election, but America’s long-term problem is debt, debt, debt.  I am frankly surprised — and relieved — that America’s youth hasn’t revolted like young Greeks have (see prior post.) The debt they are carrying is far worse.

Americans are just more optimistic I guess…

http://youtu.be/8DABheis01E

This does not look like a good situation…