Sunday, October 11, 2009

Cuomo alludes to Tweed

Corruption bill ignored
By DAVID SEIFMAN and BRENDAN SCOTT, NY Post

Assembly Democrats yesterday turned a cold shoulder to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's attempt to overhaul the state's corruption-scarred pension system.

On the steps of Manhattan's Tweed Courthouse, a reminder of earlier cronyism, Cuomo announced legislation to create a 13-member board to oversee pension investments and restrict donors to the state comptroller's campaign from doing business with the $117 billion fund.

"It's time to enact these reforms. Enough money has been stolen. It's gone on long enough," said Cuomo, flanked by state senators, including John Sampson (D-Brooklyn) and John Flanagan (R-LI).

But the legislation faces resistance in the Democrat-controlled Assembly, where Speaker Sheldon Silver is backing a competing bill that would have taxpayers fund comptroller campaigns.

The Assembly bill contains pay-to-play restrictions similar to Cuomo's proposal but would not take away the comptroller's sole control of the pension fund.

1 comment:

Taxpayer said...

"It's time to enact these reforms. Enough money has been stolen. It's gone on long enough," said Cuomo ...

But the legislation faces resistance in the Democrat-controlled Assembly, where Speaker Sheldon Silver is backing a competing bill that would have taxpayers fund comptroller campaigns.

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Silver says that NOT enough money has yet been stolen. Long enough? We've only just begun!

Naturally, Silver is backing a bill that would force taxpayers to fund the campaigns of comptrollers who will assist in the theft.