For the most part, the MTA has not played a starring role in the race for governor of New York. Despite the authority’s financial struggles and the attack on the payroll tax from the area’s suburban counties, neither Republican candidate Carl Paladino nor Democratic nominee Andrew Cuomo have paid more than lip service to the MTA. That changed yesterday.
While fighting against a 24-point deficit in the latest polls, Paladino opined on the MTA during a Crain’s breakfast yesterday. The Daily News’ Daily Politics has the transcript, and Paladino’s remarks on the MTA are what you would expect:
I’m going to take the MTA apart piece by piece. I will put it under a microscope. I will put competent management in, management that really understands how to work and how we efficiently and cost-productively work. … I will take it apart piece by piece. I will expose it to the people. And then you see how fast the legislature lets me take the MTA and bring it back into the government, back under the control of the New York State Department of Transportation, and back under the control of the people. Because right now this faceless giant is killing this community. It’s, it’s horrible, the effect.
Despite this pledge, the GOP nominee also said he would fire Jay Walder, a statement that makes me believe he hasn’t been paying attention. For all of the MTA’s faults, Walder has led an effort to trim over $700 million in annual spending from the MTA’s budget. If that’s not competent management, I’m not sure what is, and for that alone, he should not be fired before his six-year term is up.
Anyway, as with most politician of any persuasion in New York, Paladino doesn’t seem to understand that the MTA is a creature of the state of New York. There’s no need to put the MTA under the control of the Department of Transportation — another bureaucratic nightmare — when the state Senate and Assembly already has oversight control over the MTA and the Governor can appoint the authority’s head. Instead of a real discourse on the state’s transportation needs, it seems as though New York voters are just going to get the same old, same old from its candidates.
27 comments
Paladino probably couldn’t name the last three MTA chairmen, not to mention what transportation divisions fall under the MTA’s aegis. Idiot couldn’t find the Lexington Ave line even with a map, yet he’s gonna save us all. Only thing he knows is that he has to blow up something. Can’t wait to see this doofus fade from view come November.
Paladino must be the best thing that ever happened to Andrew Cuomo. Running against that lunatic will make Cuomo a shoo-in.
Obama is probably hoping to have the same good luck in 2012 by having to run against Palin, but he probably won’t get that lucky.
True, but new tunnel issues aside, Obama better look over his shoulder at Chris Christie. He’s angry but articulate, and sticks to his guns, which a lot of red meat voters who don’t like Obama will flock to. Palin is a joke and can’t be taken seriously. Christie, whether you like him or not, is not idiot and can articulate a point.
Sort of straying off topic but I think Christie’s too centrists of most issues to earn a national nomination. From the perspective of a northeast Democrat, he’d be a perfectly acceptable Republican candidate for president, but he’s not right-wing enough to appeal to GOP primary voters.
I agree with Ben – Christie might have survived a GOP primary in the 2008 landscape, but unless the “Tea Party’ implodes within weeks of the 2010 elections, I don’t think Christie would survive a 2012 Presidential primary. It’s going to be too caustic of an environment. Not saying that it’s ensured to be Palin, but it does presently seem to need to be someone with “authentic” Tea Party credentials. Christie is a person to take seriously long-term, but… so was Lincoln Chafee and the like, and look where they are right now in terms of the power structure.
Everything he said sounds good. The MTA is a faceless giant and needs to be changed
Yep. The problem is that sounds good and good are two completely different things.
Excellent point, Alon!
in the words of bill clinton “depends on what the definition of is is”
…And then what? I am all for change, but what would be the endgame of putting it under the NYS DOT? Would things just be magically better after that, is the DOT such an efficient machine that the subways would run smoother and projects finish faster?
You read SAS every day. Do you not think that Walder has changed the “faceless giant” over the last year? If not, what would you have him do differently?
I think I misunderstood. I like what Jay Walder is doing. My point was what is putting the subways under the DOT going to do if the funding doesn’t change, or gets worse. Or, if he immediately fires the guy trying to save bundles of money, what’s his plan to make the subways for the better
I think Ben was replying to “Nesta”.
I think I’d prefer no face at all to Paladino’s face.
This guy doesn’t even have a clue.
And we all know that bit-rate bullies from Buffalo are experts on NYC transportation issues. I mean, really, why didn’t we think of this before?! [/snark]
Not Fair!!! (Says Buffalonian expatriate — namely because that town is so backwards and closed-minded. Goodbye Paladino!)
Paladino talks big now, but watch that change if he is elected. Remember Bloomberg’s promises when running for re-election although he didn’t even have any power over the MTA?
Before: I will make the MTA responsive. I will get them to provide free crosstown buses because it wouldn’t really cost them anything extra since most are transferring anyway and the buses will run faster because people won’t have to swipe their cards. I will get them to increase bus service into Manhattan.
After: Well I really don’t control the MTA. I’m not so sure that free crosstown buses is such a good idea. They are the experts. Let them study it. The extra buses into Manhattan was only if you would have approved Congestion Pricing.
What a turn around.
“Paladino talks big now, but watch that change if he is elected.”
true. i revile him, but i wouldn’t fear him if he were elected. and not just about transportation: in regards any legislative project, the likes of sheldon silver would make a quivering mass of jelly out of paladino.
Paladino is a clown, to the extent that I suspect his nomination is a ploy to throw the election to Cuomo. But there is a serious argument against setting up agencies that exist at sort of arms length apart from the normal government bureaucracy (and any agency with a Board counts). They tend to weaken accountability and democratic control.
I happen to like the idea of having the subways and bridges within New York City run and funded entirely by the government of the City of New York. If they screw it up, its a failure of city government and voters can hold the Mayor and Council accountable (and the subways are a very visible issue to voters). If they screw it up badly enough, you can revoke the charter. Commuter rail is a legitimate function for a state agency, though I can see the LIRR structured as a joint agency run by New York City, Nassau, and Suffolk, and MetroNorth similarly between New York City, Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam.
Here’s the problem: the modern-day Republican Party is uniquely unsuitable to making government work, especially not its Tea Party segment. Multiple conservative thinktanks have pooh-poohed the idea of making government more efficient, saying it would just make people demand more government. Better, they imply, would be to hobble it and force privatization. The endgame is not improving government, but drowning it in a bathtub.
The only use of a movement conservative is that he may pull the plug on wasteful spending; ARC is a good example. But New York State has nothing comparable: ESA is already nearing completion, SAS is a worthy project, and the 7 extension is funded by the city. There is waste in operations, but to cut it without cutting necessary services would require someone with knowledge of transit and a commitment to making it work, on which Paladino is a 0/2. Bad cuts do not produce any improvement; on the contrary, they make government agencies less capable of reforming and more vulnerable to private sector stiffing.
American government waste is begging for review by a European right-wing liberal party, but all we’re getting is right-wing populists.
“Multiple conservative thinktanks have pooh-poohed the idea of making government more efficient, saying it would just make people demand more government. Better, they imply, would be to hobble it and force privatization. The endgame is not improving government, but drowning it in a bathtub.”
a very good point. i think it was brent bozell who said that he wants to cut taxes for the purpose of ‘strangling the government’.
At least there is one thing that Paladino is eloquent on. There is corruption at the MTA. There is woeful mismanagement at the MTA. The MTA is paid from our monies — our tax monies our fare monies. YET the MTA is not accountable to anyone. This is not Stalinist Russia. Supposedly this is government for and by the people.
Proof?
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