COMMENTARY
Rod Watson: It’s ‘What, me worry?’ in the State Senate
I have the perfect nominee to run State Senate Democrats’ new, expanded office in Buffalo: Rick Wagoner. Not since the former GM head accompanied his Ford and Chrysler buddies to D. C. on private jets has anyone been so out of touch with angry and financially drained taxpayers.
The Dems’ excuse for expanding the size and number of regional offices here and across the state? They want to bring their “message” to constituents.
News flash: The budget they just passed did a pretty good job of that.
Imposing $8.3 billion in tax and fee hikes while making virtually no structural reforms and living temporarily on federal stimulus money says all we need to know about their “agenda.”
Bringing more bureaucrats here merely adds insult to the financial injury.
Even if it doesn’t cost extra—as they insist—it still costs extra.
If their budget has enough money for extra people, downsize the political operation and put the funds into effective programs such as “Read to Succeed” and others outlined in The Buffalo News’ “Children of Poverty” series last year.
Use the money to augment the federally funded Buffalo Employment and Training Center to fight joblessness in a city where the poverty rate is nearly 30 percent.
Put the money into the “green jobs” initiative being talked about to employ people in a region steadily losing its manufacturing base.
Any such use would be better than more patronage in the midst of a recession, whether here or the other places the new or expanded offices are planned: Rochester, Syracuse, New York City, Long Island and—get this—Albany.
That’s right, Albany is planning a branch office in Albany.
Of course, it’s no shock that one of our senators, Bill Stachowski, could say only that he had nothing to do with the expanded Buffalo office, that it all emanated from the Capitol.
A Western New York representative having nothing to do with what happens in Western New York?
Gee, what a surprise. Antoine Thompson, our other senator, refused to comment, apparently following the dictum, “If you can’t say something good about something, . . .” Or, more likely, he was following that other famous dictum, “If the press isn’t going to say something good about you, hide.”
And just which economic-development expert is being eyed to head the Buffalo office?
It might be Al Thompson, head of the Grassroots political organization who was recently ousted from the patronage pit at the Board of Elections.
Or perhaps it will be that other job-creation expert, Joe Mesi, the former heavyweight contender who fought back heroically from brain bleeds before quitting boxing to run unsuccessfully for the Senate.
Having an athlete’s name recognition didn’t qualify Mesi to be a senator, and it certainly doesn’t qualify him to run such an office—unless you count carrying the party banner last year as a qualification.
But don’t blame Mesi. During his comeback, doctors certified that he’s not brain-damaged. Can our elected leaders say the same?
Who in their right mind would figure this is the time to stick it to taxpayers by expanding political operations instead of using that money to fund critical programs or reduce taxes?
But if politicians insist on spending the money on themselves, I have another idea: Use it to buy a bigger room, one that will hold more than the infamous “three men.”
Then maybe people such as Stachowski and Thompson will have a little more say in how our money gets wasted.
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