Opinion

Throughout the budget-negotiation process, I’ve discussed a number of priorities, like the need to help middle-class families, supporting our children’s education, and helping family farmers. I think we’ve had some meaningful conversations on these matters. We must also see what we can do to invigorate upstate New York.   I am very passionate about finding […]

National Ag week was celebrated recently. It’s a week in which we recognize the abundant crops harvested by farmers all over the nation and the contributions they make to the economy. In New York state alone, the agriculture industry recorded $5.68 billion in cash receipts in 2013, up more than $1 billion from 2010.  Economists estimate

It is spring as Professor Albert Einstein and his assistant walk across the Princeton University campus. The shy assistant asks the famous physicist if the test he just gave his physics graduate students isn’t the same test he gave last year to this same group of students? “Yes,” Einstein answers, “it is the same test

I voted in favor of 17 reform measures on March 9] that would have created more openness and accountability in the [New York] Assembly. The Assembly has been mired with scandal and dysfunction for several decades, something I believe could have been corrected if the Democrats chose to adopt this set of reforms. I am dismayed at

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office announced in 2013 that it would use Microsoft Office 365 — an email and software management system to consolidate 27 agency email systems, improve access to applications, share calendars in a cloud-based system, and save taxpayer dollars. It recently implemented this software. Many aspects about the new system make

New York is well known for government. We have lots of it. Central New York is no exception, and that’s why I’m proud that Onondaga County is the first in the state to examine whether we have the best structure and the best practices for our governance. Together, we have a unique opportunity to shape

Now, you could get upset over all the whoppers that public figures fling at you. You could proclaim that evil abounds across the fruited plain.    Or, you could become philosophical. The way we did at one of the world’s greatest schools of philosophy — my father’s saloon: the Empire Hotel. I call it the

The second biggest budget item in the state budget is education, which is right behind health care. Last year, the state spent $22.3 billion on education. In 2012, combined with the local and federal share of education, New Yorkers spent $58.4 billion on public education. That’s up 56 percent over combined spending in 2002.    This

Will Rogers said that when Congress makes a law, it’s a joke. And when it makes a joke, it’s a law. These days, when the president makes a budget it’s a joke. Because Congress won’t even read it.   I don’t blame Congress. For a simple reason — the economy struggles big time. Yet the