Hypocrisy, Venality, Cynicism

I have nothing much to say about the Tax Act, except that the flipflopping of the one-time no voters is at least as egregious as the amaurotic ignorance of the constant yes voters, one of whom represents me in Congress. This op-ed is a pretty good summary.

How could nearly every Republican representative — and all 52 Republican senators — support the tax bill? The best answer may be the most cynical: because it benefits key leaders, their friends, their heirs and their donors.

Our governor is on record as threatening the four NYS members of Congress who voted for the bill. He is also making news for his plan to have the state divest from the fossil fuel industry. These are fine ways to appeal to progressives, although he could have called for divestment, I suppose, in any year that wasn't leading up to his re-election. However, these moves are overshadowed in my mind by the fact that last Monday he vetoed a bill that would have made a technical adjustment in the tax cap by clarifying that a school district's costs related to BOCES capital should be treated in the same way as the district's capital costs, which are currently excluded from the tax cap calculation. This is something that has twice passed the Assembly and Senate, because it is a no-brainer, but because it might be misconstrued as loosening the tax cap, Cuomo cannot bring himself to support it.

The result is very simple. No group of districts can afford to pay the millions required to update and upgrade BOCES facilities without state assistance. Any BOCES facility (including ours) that needs to expand or make major improvements can forget about it. Students who attend regular public schools are assured of regular fixes, but their sisters and brothers with disabilities, special needs, or a desire to learn a trade will have to make do with failing buildings, be crammed into overcrowded spaces, or end up shipped to faraway BOCES that can accommodate them. But hey, they don't vote.  #kidslivesmatter