Trump and Hochul Should Make This Deal
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has been meeting with President Donald Trump regarding New York’s infrastructure and other important issues. There’s a very easy solution for what is troubling New York on this front. Trump should agree to help New York with some of the needs being presented by Hochul for the metro transit system, but in return, she must agree to drop congestion pricing and to put the MTA under a financial control board. Everyone wins.
Push for MPO Gets Us More Funding
A few months ago, our Center for Cost Effective Government called for Long Island to break away from the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, the group that is dominated by the New York City projects. Now, suddenly the state is expediting the funding for the proposed bridge at Nicolls Road at Route 347. Coincidence? Or did our collective pressure work?
End Wasteful Earmarks
Newsday just wrote an article that mostly lambasted the elimination of congressional earmarks. The article made it sound like Republicans were destroying Long Island. There was a quote from a fiscal hawk who noted how wasteful they are, but the overriding slant of the article is how fire departments, veterans and nonprofits would be decimated.
This is nonsense.
These entities can get the funding they need if the application is presented as a single line item that obtains scrutiny through the budget process. Earmarks eliminate any scrutiny, oversight or questioning of the worth of the funding.
Earmarks are basically slush funds for incumbents who sprinkle the goodies around to their favorite special interest groups and then take bows as being heroes for supplying the funding. Any wonder why incumbents in the U.S. are re-elected overwhelmingly?
In a rare moment of fiscal responsibility, Congress eliminated earmarks after the Tea Party revolt. But, alas, the big spenders on both sides of the aisle prevailed and put them back into the process. Party leaders love it because they’re able to corral individual members to vote for ugly bills, so long as they get their earmarks. It’s time to once again eliminate earmarks.
Congratulations to the responsible legislators who have said enough is enough. It’s time for the media to stop bashing those who are trying to end wasteful spending
Schumer Saved Dems from Themselves
U.S. Senator Charles Schumer is getting heat from the partisan left over not shutting the government down. But little do they realize he did them an enormous favor. Shutting the government down would have been an enormous gift to the DOGE crew that is looking to pare down our bloated government. The exigencies of the shutdown mode extend to the executive branch’s wide powers it ordinarily wouldn’t have. Lawsuits initiated by the Dems that have slowed the progress of DOGE would be much less successful. Schumer’s response to his angry colleagues should be: “Be careful what you wish for.”