If delivered by almost any other sitting governor, I would be applauding the speech as one of the most dramatic and profound, albeit shortest in length and details, I have ever heard. And I have heard at least 40 of them.

It is right to putting all elected officials on notice that: the culture of addiction to bad behavior and improper acts is coming to an end; no more hiding behind prosperity when the good times are here; actually forcing adherence to spending caps, what a novel concept; and, instituting a 4-year fiscal recovery plan (please refer to my previous articles on John Faso).

In reality, he has no politic clout at all and all these strict measures are meaningless. He’s a paper tiger and a one year lame duck. He has no chance of receiving the Democratic nomination for governor, especially after this speech.

Ethics reform and campaign finance reform is absolutely necessary. In fact, most every measure the governor put forth in this speech is necessary and a good government initiative. However, these measures will now need to be included in the platform of the next gubernatorial candidates for the upcoming election. Until then, none of this will get done. It will get talked about at great length, but no legislation will pass.

 doug.boettner@gmail.com

In a previous article about John Faso and his ideas as to how to repair New York’s fiscal crisis, I promised to provide you with his six point plan and my thoughts on his six plan and here they are:

One: Governor Paterson should ask the Legislature to declare a fiscal emergency authorizing him to freeze scheduled salary and benefit increases to all public employees in the state.

I highly recommend this action and I actually have recommended it myself in a previous article. As he points out in his article, there is precedence for this type of freeze. It was done by state law for New York City in the 1970s and for Buffalo earlier in the decade. Public employee salary increases are estimated at $2.5 to 3.0 billion statewide. The freeze would significantly reduce future year budget gaps.

I agree with this totally.

Two: Freeze state aid to schools for at least the next two years. However, school districts can manage this only if wages and benefits, which represent 75% of school spending, are frozen as well. The only alternative to a pay freeze would be damaging layoffs of teachers.

This makes sense to me since school districts, like every other private and public entity, should properly manage their resources and should be able to make cuts when needed. State aid for schools is not entitlement to unbridled spending.

Three: Enact a less generous pension plan for new public employees. This would save approximately $50 billion over the next 30 years and help ensure long-term fiscal health for the state and local governments. In addition, overtime should be eliminated in calculating pensions.

I totally agree with this point, and specifically with the elimination of overtime in the calculation of pensions. For far too long public employees have been pumping up their pensions by working excessive amounts of overtime in the three years before they retire. The allowance of this practice falsely inflates individual pensions at a cost to us all.

Four: Sweep away state laws that only serve special interests and add to taxpayer costs, especially those that are related to labor negotiations and building construction.

To me, this is a no brainer. Special interests have been detrimental to New York State for decades and attempts to change or control them have failed. Maybe with Senator Bruno’s shenanigans coming to light some meaningful change can occur.

Five: Eliminate the ability of the governor and Legislature to incur new debt without voter approval. Take the credit card away from the Legislature and require pay as you go financing for most capital projects.

This is just sound fiscal policy whether it is for New York State or our own households. Borrowing is pyramiding in New York State and is going to place a tremendous tax burden on future generations of New Yorkers.

Six: Adopt a property tax cap, similar to that in place in Massachusetts since 1980. Property taxes in the Bay State are 30 to 40 percent less than those in New York, yet services are as good or better. Limiting property taxes is essential to the state’s economic survival.

 This is one I think every New Yorker agrees with. It is sound policy. Limits must be put on all areas. Without restraints public officials will not be as prudent with the monies that are entrusted to them as if the monies were their own. They should, but history has proven time and time again not to be the case.

 Mr. Faso ends his article with a statement that “the best time to start is now”. I hope Governor Paterson and the other gubernatorial candidates are listening.

 Your thoughts and comments are welcome.

 Doug.boettner@gmail.com

Thanks to all my loyal readers, whether you have agreed or taken exception with my humble opinions about the myriad of topics I have written about during the last eventful year.

I am in a position in my life where I can really enjoy the holiday season and it feels great. As is probably the case with many of my readers your life has taken you down many different roads, some nicely paved, some with speed bumps, some with pot holes and some that were unpaved and not found on any maps.

In my case I traveled all of these different roads without a GPS to guide me and I have ended up on a long stretch of paved road these last eight years. I thank my loyal friends, my two sons, my newest family and especially my lovely wife, for this great run. I also thank the people who decided not to be my friend and who may have wronged me along this journey. The adversity and roadblocks they created that I fought through only served to make me stronger. For this I thank them.

So, if you are having trouble navigating through your life’s journey, just stay true to your values, beliefs and to your goals and remember, the road my get better at the very next turn.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to one and all. And if you don’t celebrate Christmas as I do, have a happy holiday no matter which holiday it may be.

 Doug

doug.boettner@gmail.com

John Faso wrote an article in the Times-Union last Sunday, 29 November that struck a chord with me. In plain English, the man who has run for two elected offices, those of governor and state comptroller, clearly spelled out how New York State got itself into such a nasty fiscal mess. He then went on to explain, in detail, six actions New York State needs to take to make the necessary repairs to fix the dilemma.

I have only met John Faso socially on one occasion. He invited me to have dinner with him at the Fort Orange Club back in the summer of 2001 when he was running against Alan Hevesi for State Comptroller. The dinner meeting was arranged by Don Dunn, a former boss of mine while I was the Director of Contracts in the State Comptroller’s Office (OSC) under Ned Regan.

John Faso was doing his due diligence in finding out everything he could about the operations for OSC. Since I had served 29 years with OSC, most of which being in high level, policy making positions, he decided to pick my brain to learn more about OSC. In my positions there I was privy to some very high exposure and controversial issues. I also was aware of where many of the skeletons were hidden if you will.

I gained a measure of respect for him when he never used any of the “dirt” I related to him at that dinner meeting in his campaign. He stayed above the fray and took the high road. In addition, my assessment of him is that he is a very intelligent, articulate and caring person. Other than what I gleaned during the meeting with him I did not know much about John Faso; but I have followed his career and his attempts at winning statewide elected office.

My belief now is that he may have been the best candidate for both of the statewide elected offices for which he ran. First he lost to Alan Hevesi, who resigned in disgrace and is still at the center of a “pay for play” contracts scandal. He next ran against Eliot Spitzer for governor and we all know how that ended. Now try to imagine if John Faso had won the race against the infamous Client Number 9. Based on his article referred to above, New York State would have already been working at fixing its fiscal mess since 2006. We’d have been at it already for over three years now.

Both Hevesi and Spitzer had better name recognition than Faso and I believe that was his ultimate undoing, not that he wasn’t qualified for the offices. John Faso has the credentials. He’s a man who grew up in NYC but has lived in Kinderhook for a couple decades, so he has an appreciation for both the needs of downstate and upstate New Yorkers. He was also the minority leader in the Assembly and ceded that position to run for State Comptroller in 2002. So he has an intimate knowledge of the State Legislature which is crucial.

As voters in New York State, we need to look past the hype when it comes to candidates for our statewide elected offices. Eliot Spitzer was very high profile, but there also is a reason no Attorney General in New York State had ever been elected governor in the history of New York State. Attorney Generals don’t make for good governors. They are law enforcement animals; they don’t play nice in the political sandbox. The governor needs to be a diplomat and a person who knows when to “hold’em and when to fold’em”. Please keep this in mind when we are being hyped to death to elect Andrew Cuomo, the current Attorney General, as our governor.

I will follow up this article with a recap of the article by John Faso with my takes on why I think his six step plan may just be a blueprint for fixing New York’s fiscal mess. In the interim, take a look at the article.

Douglas Boettner

Doug.boettner@gmail.com

In line with the title of this column/blog, let’s keep it real.

In the Empire State Section of today’s Times-Union there is article entitled “Voter to Obama: Get off Paterson’s back”. The article states that a Marist poll shows that 62 percent of voters feel the Obama Administration was wrong to suggest that Paterson not run for re-election as governor of New York State in 2010.

Technically, the president is the head of his political party. He holds the highest elected position in the country. As such, his concern should be to support as many candidates as he can in high ranking positions around the country; candidates that will support his administration. If a candidate from his party is running for one of these positions, and governor of New York State is clearly one of them, and that candidate has the lowest acceptance ratings in history in that state, the president would be remiss in not supporting a different Democratic candidate who will have a better chance of holding the office of governor for the party.

This isn’t unique to New York State, and this is not unique to the Obama Administration. The success of a political party is measured by winning an elected office and holding on to it. This is not rocket science.

So what if Paterson, and now apparently some New York voters, are upset with what the Obama Administration is saying. Doesn’t Paterson shoulder the blame for his own dismal poll numbers? I mean we’re talking the worst approval rating numbers in the history of New York State. In my own humble opinion, this man has’t a snow ball’s chance in Hades of being re-elected. Just like in business, you don’t throw good money after bad.

I will say one thing. The timing of the announcement, or leak of this information, could have been better. But the decision as to when to release info are made for a reason and are generally not made by the “top dog”. And in most cases, a leak isn’t really a leak;

Welcome to the world of politics at its highest level.

doug.boettner@gmail.com

This ranks in the category of “you have to be kidding me”.  The Times-Union reported today that “the next goal in Mayor Bloomberg’s anti-tobacco crusade is to ban smoking at NYC parks and beaches.”

Let me get this straight.  Smokers already are not allowed to smoke in restaurants, even if the owner of the restaurant wants to designate it as a “smoker’s only restaurant”.  And there is a ban on smoking in public buildings and in some cases outside of public buildings.

As I’ve written before, I became a cigar smoker about seven years ago.  Being a non-smoker up to that point I fully sympathized with the ban of smoking in restaurants and public buildings.  Allowing non-smokers to breath second-hand smoke is wrong.  Originally restaurants were allowed to provide a smoking and a non-smoking section within their restaurant; and that option is now disappearing.  I can understand it.

Although I do agree with the ban on smoking in public buildings, I believe that a room for smoking with proper ventilation should be provided to accommodate the smokers who frequent these same public buildings.  If non-smokers have the right to a smoke-free environment, shouldn’t smokers have a right to a smoking environment?  Especially if it has no impact on non-smokers.

Now, this is especially true, in my humble opinion, when the public building houses Federal, State or local employees.  Listen to this; because of this ban, smokers are generally allowed to head outside the building several times a day to enjoy a smoke during their workday.  Now, keep in mind, the employee leaves their work stations, usually picks up a couple smoking buddies to join them, they take the elevator to the first or ground floor and then they walk  an appropriate distance from the building to smoke.  The cigarette can take from eight to ten minutes to smoke, and then the return trip starts back to the employee’s work station.  The entire journey can take from 15 to 20 minutes.  Smoking employees generally take from four to ten or more smoke breaks a day.  Now you do the math:  At the low end it would be one hour to as much as 3 hours or more.  Time taken away from doing the job they are hired to perform. Most of these public employees work a 7 ½ to 8 hour work day.  The loss of productivity could be astounding.  Now wouldn’t it make much more sense and be extremely cheaper to provide a smoking room with heavy duty ventilation on a few floors of the public building to accomodate these smokers and keep them at their workstations?  We need to stop the insanity, plus, smokers have as much right to smoke as non-smokers have a right not to have to breathe second-hand smoke.

Note:  Cigar smokers are not even included in this rant because the average cigar takes 45 minutes to an hour to smoke; and that amount of time would not be allowed in a single episode.

Getting back to NYC’s latest attempt to regulate our personal life in the name of the “public good”, is smoking in a public park in the great outdoors subjecting non-smokers to second-hand smoke?  Really?  When a smoker exhales or otherwise releases smoke into the atmosphere, doesn’t it immediately dissipate, especially if there is a breeze?  Of course it does.  Now in an enclosed space it’s a totally different story.  I mean, have I missed the huge public outcry about breathing in second-hand smoke in parks and on beaches?  Or does Mayor Bloomberg deem it unhealthy for a non-smoker to even see someone smoking?

It’s insane. And how will it ever be enforced?  It can’t be, which means it’s all for show.  Come on Mr. Bloomberg, you can do better than this.  You need to hire some new spin doctors.  You’re mayor of NYC for goodness sake and this issue is a major issue that shows up on your radar screen?

The corruption of elected officials, public officials, and persons holding the fiduciary trust of the public-at-large continues to grow. Maybe it has always been at these levels and we are only now more routinely uncovering and disclosing it.

          It seems you can’t open a newspaper or look at an online news service without one of its main stories being the abuse of power by a public official. It’s ubiquitous. And in many of these situations, these same people were either elected by the people or were put into their positions because they were respected members of either the community or the clergy. These are not people you would do background checks on prior to hiring them. But maybe this is exactly what we need to start doing.

          Let’s take a look at the recently disclosed situation that occurred in New Jersey. Yes, New Jersey, the home of Tony Soprano. A 10 year federal probe initially was focusing on a money laundering network that operated between Brooklyn, Deal, New Jersey and Israel. The network was laundering tens of millions of dollars through Jewish charities controlled by rabbis in New York and New Jersey.

          The probe then centered on corrupt politicians. Tens of thousands of bribes were paid to politicians and public officials to get approvals for buildings and other projects in New Jersey. In all 44 people were arrested in a state where 130 public officials have pleaded guilty or have been convicted since 2001.

          Here is the breakdown of who was arrested: The mayors of Hoboken, Ridgefield, and Secaucus; the deputy mayor of Jersey City; two New Jersey state assemblymen; five rabbis in New York and New Jersey; and a member of the governor’s cabinet resigned in haste after his home was searched by Federal investigators. Additionally, one of the accused public officials was found dead of suspicious circumstances.

          Now, this is situation was uncovered by one federal probe in one area of the country. As a professionally trained auditor, my instincts tell me that if I do another ten probes into other areas in the New York/New Jersey area alone, I will find similar abuses and criminal acts to the same degree they were found in this probe.

          This is a cancer. It cannot be cured. There is not enough Federal or state investigators to find and expose all of the corruption. Power corrupts, and when the public is apathetic (or maybe numb) to the abuses, the cancer grows. The old Mel Brooks line from History of the World – Part I applies to this situation “It’s good to be the King”. Members of the Senate in the Roman Empire were guilty of the same abuses of power.

          The real question is: How do we instill honesty and integrity back into our public officials?

          When I was at Bentley College in the late 1960’s, Boston was a hot bed of social unrest and political activism. Anti-Vietnam War demonstrations were occurring on a regular basis on Boston Common.

          It was the anti-war movement, the free love/sexual revolution movement, the drug revolution spearheaded by Dr. Timothy Leary and his catch phrase “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” LBJ was leaving and Richard Nixon was in the White House and he purportedly had his “silent majority” right by his side.

          We often heard of this silent majority but we didn’t really understand who they were or where we could find them. It was always a mystery to us. This large mass of people who supported Richard Nixon no matter what he did.

          Then Richard Nixon, with his “silent majority” as his backbone, announced the United States would be invading Cambodia. We were upset and disillusioned and throughout the country the “not so silent minority” protested at numerous campuses nationwide.

          But let me reset the stage even further. With a promise to end the Vietnam War, Nixon had been elected president in 1968. In November of 1969 the My Lai Massacre prompted widespread outrage across the country and the world. The war had appeared to be winding down throughout 1969, so when Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia in the Spring of 1970, many young people, including college students and teachers, were concerned about being drafted to fight in a war they strongly opposed and, across the country, campuses erupted in protests in what Time magazine called “a nation-wide student strike”, setting the stage for the events of early May 1970.

          The Kent State shootings, also known as the Kent State massacre, occurred at Kent State University on 4 May 1970, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others.

          There was a significant national response to the shootings. Hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike of over eight million students. The event further divided the country along political lines in an already socially contentious time in our country.

          Personally, as a student, I was outraged. I was not an active war protestor but neither was several of the students that were killed and wounded at Kent State. I was even more outraged when then President Nixon had a callous reaction to the killings. Could the “silent majority” actually tolerate the killing of innocent civilians? Apparently they did and now let me fast forward to the present time.

          It’s funny, maybe even humorous, what the passage of time can do to a person, a generation and to a nation of people. The war protestors of the 1960s and 1970s, aka The Baby Boomers, are now into their late 50s and 60s. Many of them, over the last 6 years, have had a chance to protest the Iraq War. A war that to many people, is not all that dissimilar to the Vietnam War in terms of not having a good national defense reason to be there fighting.

          So one can argue, the more things change, the more they stay the same and, the only thing that is constant is change. But sometimes change can be for the good; sometimes for the worse; and sometimes just for the sake of change. In my lifetime I have seen dramatic changes in the people in this country. And, in my humble opinion, it has not been for the good.

          Let me try to take this one item at a time as a way of more clearly explaining my beliefs:

The Family Unit – The family unit in this country is declining at an alarming rate and has been for the last 40 years or more. The continually raising divorce rate in this country is a major factor but the need for both parents to work in order to maintain their desired lifestyle is also a major contributor to the decline.

Families started to play “keeping up with the Jones” back in the late 1950s and early 1960s and look at where it has lead. We are a nation of excesses and luxuries we really don’t need. A case in point is the sub-prime rate mortgage collapse that has occurred and will continue to occur for the next few years and mortgages payments increase.

Families who really couldn’t afford to own a home, or couldn’t afford a mansion but could afford a normal home, were allowed to get what appeared to be cheaper mortgages. Families started to live well beyond their means. They were already doing that but with smaller ticketed items: big screen TVs; i Phones; multiple cars; RVs; boats, etc.

One of the major reasons for divorce in this country is money problems, yet we continue to live beyond our means. We need to remember these famous words “there will always be people better off than you and people worse off than you” and your goal is to be comfortable with your lot.

Who really lost out are the children of the two-parent and the single parent working families, the so called “latch key generation”. Children need guidance, especially in their formative years. We always had our moms at home when we returned from school in the afternoon. She made sure that: I did my homework; I changed out of my school clothes; and that I had a small snack before dinner. There were no video games or computers. We were outside getting exercise playing baseball or kickball, or playing tag or just riding our bikes. There was no obesity problem with kids the way it is today. We had our daily exercise and mom was cooking healthy meals. They were no McDonalds or Burger King or Taco Bell for dinner. The only fast food we ever had was maybe an occasional TV dinner.

Generations of children were left unsupervised for two to four hours a day. And we all know what generally happens when children are left unsupervised.

Patriotism – Over the last 40 years I have seen a decline in patriotism in our country. Of course after the events of 9/11/2001 we did experience a large spike in patriotism that lasted maybe two to three years. It has almost subsided to the levels it was before 9/11. This is a shame. When I was a youngster I was extremely proud of my country. That sense of patriotism was given to me by my parents and at school. At home my father was always singing patriotic songs; America the Beautiful; God Bless America; and the Star Spangled Banner.

We were taught to always sing out the Star Spangled banner at our Little League games and at all sporting events we attended. We took off our hats and placed our right hand over our hearts. We displayed our flags on our houses and on flagpoles at all national holidays. I just don’t see that anymore. I sing our national anthem at sporting events as often as I can and if someone else is singing it I sing it from the stands, but most of the time I am the only other person singing. It’s a shame. In addition, most people don’t even remove their hats or salute the flag when it is presented at a parade or sporting event.

          Religious Beliefs – Freedom of religion is one of our basic rights as an American. Our country was founded on a strong religious belief in God. It’s on our money: In God We Trust. It’s in most of our most cherished national documents. But over the years our own government has banned the phrase “under God” from our own Pledge of Allegiance to our flag. Systematically all objects and all references to God have been removed from all public government buildings.

It’s just wrong and almost everyone I know from my age group is appalled that it is happening. We have to make it known to our elected officials that we do not agree with what has happened and if they act to reverse it we will vote them out of office.

Remember in many cases it is the same legislators that have removed God from our lives that are breaking the laws of the church to which they worship by stealing governments funds, committing adultery or having illegal sex with minors and countless other sins and regressions.

          I could go on and on citing examples but I need to bring this article to a close and make my point. And my point is this. The country has been headed in the wrong direction for decades and it’s time to right the ship. We can no longer tolerate being the “ugly neighbor” to countries around the world. We need to lose our arrogance and start to get back to the basics that made this country great. We are not better than the rest of the nations of the world; but we are different.

          We believe in democracy, freedom, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness being our core rights and beliefs. We cannot sit back when we see other people’s rights taken away from them. We cannot tolerate aggression by stronger nations against weaker nations. We need to be the watchdog, but not the aggressor. We should not be forcing ourselves or our ideals on any nation, but we should stand at the ready to defend them and their own rights.

          Let’s make a pledge to return to the values our parents and grandparents taught us. Honor our country, our family, especially our parents, show respect to everyone, honor our fallen veterans and respect and support the soldiers currently serving to keep our country free. Our job is to instill this sense of patriotism in our children. Make them proud to be an American. Teach them the importance of family values, especially if they are from a broken home.

The Silent Majority just can’t afford to remain silent. Start to speak out. Get vocal. Get organized and start to take action to get our country back in the hands of the people where it was always intended to be by our founding fathers.

doug.boettner@gmail.com