Andrew Cuomo Is Nothing Like His Father

By Yashwanth Manjunath

When George W. Bush launched a preemptive strike against a sovereign country that had never attacked us, without any support from most of the global community, it was an excellent reminder that Dubya is not his father, despite using his name to become president. The elder Bush believed in the exact opposite foreign policy of a “new world order,” which emphasized collective security and cooperation between the great powers of the world before resorting to military intervention. I  see a similar phenomenon unfolding with Governor Andrew Cuomo and his budget priorities in New York.

Two nights ago I wrote about how Republican Governor Tom Corbett is reprehensibly cutting taxes for the rich, while cutting education. Well, Andrew Cuomo is giving him a run for his money. Cuomo is not only cutting taxes for millionaires and billionaires by over $5.2 billion over the next two years; he is also focusing his record $1.5 billion in K-12 education cuts on the poorest districts in his state, which is exactly what Corbett is doing.

For example, in wealthy Syosset, which offers almost 30 Advanced Placement courses, Cuomo wants to cut $212 per student.  Meanwhile, in poor Ilion, which only has one AP class, and where one-third of the students qualify for the school lunch program, Cuomo’s budget would cut $688 per student.

At the 1984 Democratic National Convention,  former New York Governor Mario Cuomo gave the greatest speech (in my opinion) that any Democratic politician has ever given. As the keynote speaker at that event, Cuomo took Ronald Reagan’s description of America as a “shining city on a hill” and cleverly argued that life in America is more accurately described as a “tale of two cities.”

Cuomo criticized Reagan for showering the shining city where he and his rich friends live with wealth at the expense of the poor and the downtrodden and the suffering. In a cruelly ironic twist, when presented with literally the same choice, his own son wants to protect the people living in the shining city, at the expense of the people who need help the most.

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