Senate Republicans, Democrats Spar Over School Aid
In dueling press releases today, Senate Republicans accused Democrats of wanting to cut school aid to deal with the state budget crisis, while Democrats said Republicans are “spreading lies.”
The firestorm started today in a Buffalo News story in which Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith, D-Queens, accused Republicans of opposing cuts to school aid in order to curry favor with the powerful New York United Teachers union, which has withheld endorsements of many senators who supported a property-tax cap in August.
Smith’s claims prompted Republican Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County, to warn that Smith wants to cut school aid in the middle of the year. The Legislature is expected back to Albany on Nov. 18.
“It is clear from his statements today in the Buffalo News, that Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith and his conference support mid-year cuts in state sch
ool aid, a move that would be disastrous for our schools, our children and for property taxpayers,” Skelos said in a statement. “Senator Smith obviously does not understand that this not about politics, it’s about protecting taxpayers.”
But Smith shot back that he doesn’t want to cut school spending, even after he told the paper that “I think everything is on the table.”
He said today, “Senate Democrats are not cutting education funding. The only special interest Senate Democrats care about is New York’s children and we’re going to protect them.
“The Senate Republicans have been as good for education in New York as Bush has been for the economy. Politician Dean Skelos and the Republican-controlled Senate have protected their special interest fundraising friends instead of taxpayers for 40 years, and now they’re spreading lies because they can’t win with the truth- that they’ve failed New York. This new lie proves it’s really time for change.”
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These people are making me vomit. It will not be long before I and others who seek sanity and intelligent discourse fall off the edge of the cliff, lose all decorum completely, and start calling these buffoons the filthy, expletive undeleted names that they all well deserve. Smith and Skelos accuse one another of being in the union’s pocket; each says that the other is an impediment to lowering school taxes and making appropriate cuts; each says, in the end, that they don’t want to do anything to “harm,” or cut school spending.
It is ironic that, when they talk about education, they talk to a populace that they believe is too stupid and uneducated to realize that they do nothing but double-talk and finger-point, further denigrating our intelligence. And the most baffling part of this whole tentless circus of wandering clowns is that those who must see through this flimsy shroud do not call them on it and demand which is it: Are they, themselves, stupid, therefore unqualified to lead, or are they simply machiavellian manipulators who are interested, like the old Politburo in nothing but power, $1200 suits, campaign fund shenanigans, slush accounts, becoming multimillionaires, and further furnishing their vacation houses with their ill-gotten gains. Which is it, or is it both?
How on god’s earth did we ever let this obscenity develop to the extent that it has?
Ed….It should not be a surprise to see rats foraging around garbage. That’s what they do.
And no amount of columns and editorials against them, and there have been many, have made a bit of differnce.
Term limits is the only answer. Prison terms or otherwise.
The Albany gang is OWNED by the unions and other special interests. Until that ends, nothing will change and the state will continue to sink.
Cut the teachers unions out of Albany and see real change. Until then nothing will get done. Big raises and falling grades. Yay thats all the Union cares about.