Cuomo's doing a good job.
I hate to inform you. But...
The governor has failed to take responsibility for the obvious failures, consistently blaming others and at one point even saying “governors don’t do pandemics”. (Actually, some governors just don’t read their state’s pandemic plans.) But much of the press has ignored this, focusing instead on Cuomo’s aesthetic presentation: his poise during press conferences, his dramatic statements about “taking responsibility” (even when he obviously hasn’t), and his invisible good looks.
Cuomo’s record was shameful long before coronavirus began. He enabled the IDC (Independent Democratic Conference), a group of conservative Democratic state lawmakers, in allying with the Republican minority to block progressive legislation. (Cuomo denies any role in the IDC, but
that stretches credulity.) Before the pandemic, he pushed through
Medicaid cuts which shut down necessary hospital space in the name of “efficiency” despite the warnings of medical professionals. And on 3 April, as 3,000 New Yorkers already lay dead from the virus and hospitals like
Elmhurst in Queens were overwhelmed with cases, Cuomo forced through further Medicaid cuts, slashing
$400m from hospital budgets.
As the state now staggers to its feet, Cuomo has partnered with the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to “reimagine education” (which almost certainly means
privatization), and with the ex-Google chief
Eric Schmidt to – as Naomi Klein puts it – “permanently integrat[e] technology into every aspect of civic life”. All of this has happened without the democratic input of New Yorkers, who would likely prefer that the progressive legislators they elected could govern without interference, that their hospitals have enough money to function and that billionaires don’t infiltrate and control every element of civic life.
So, you still think Homo Cumo is doing a good job? If so, apparently you have not been to NYC lately.
www.realclearpolitics.com
