N.Y.’s governor loses a few leadership points
Mineola, L.I.: In rejecting Rep. Tom Suozzi’s comprehensive COVID plan to combat the burgeoning omicron variant, Gov. Hochul revealed herself to be the empress with no clothes. Rather than confronting this crisis with clarity, conviction and a coordinated state-wide program, Hochul declared that her laissez-faire, piecemeal approach had the situation well in hand. Instead of governing during the state’s hour of need, she engaged in self-centered fundraising.
Suozzi’s broad-based solution to the pandemic’s latest mutation is emblematic of his experience as a four-term mayor of Glen Cove and as Nassau County executive. Moreover, Suozzi’s problem-solving — and patriotic — persona aligns with my centrist sensibilities. As a lifelong resident of the Empire State, I agree with the congressman that the state-controlled MTA has failed to protect riders in the “dangerous dungeon” known as the Long Island Rail Road concourse. As a card-carrying Keynesian who teaches the dismal science — both macroeconomics and microeconomics — I am greatly in favor of sinewy infrastructure revitalization to boost aggregate demand and generate jobs. As a registered Independent who bleeds the Stars and Stripes, I abhor political extremism. My antipathy extends to the conspiratorial lunacy of the far right, and the left-wing fanaticism that ritually denigrates the United States of America, “the last best hope of Earth.”
As an Italian-American, I deplore Hochul’s duplicity in marching in the Columbus Day parade and then replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Cristoforo Colombo was an exemplar of the Italian Renaissance who enlarged the world. Hochul has diminished New York State.