This Response Tells Me Everything I Need to Know About Andrew Cuomo

As you are probably already aware, New York's Working Families Party decided to endorse "Democratic" governor Andrew Cuomo at their convention after a furious day of whipping from Bill DeBlasio, Eric Schneiderman, the unions in the party, and the party leadership.

Here is the "deal" that the WFP party leadership worked out with Cuomo:

Cuomo called for hiking the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, passing the DREAM Act, enactment of a statewide system to publicly fund campaigns and a Democratic takeover of the state Senate — all key issues in the deal between Cuomo and party leaders.

So, let's look at that deal. 

 

(1) Minimum wage hike only to the level that national Democrats are pushing for----in a blue state with one of the most expensive metro areas in the country. Sorry, but $10.10 still doesn't get you far in New York City.

(2) This bill failed two months ago because Cuomo did noting to push for it
(3) I'll turn you to Alex Pareene for Cuomo's relationship with public financing. You can also look at where his campaign money is coming from to see how likely it is that he'll push this.

(4) A Democratic governor will campaign for Democrats to take the legislature. That's setting the bar below ground level. And he's already backtracking.  By the way, remember when "Democrat" Andrew Cuomo endorsed Republican state senators?

But let's get to the heart of this piece: the answer mentioned in the title. Back in 2011, Cuomo compared his opposition to the millionaire's tax to his father's opposition to the death penalty--as an example of a principled stance against the popular opinion.

Yes, he did that.

Even as Occupy Wall Street stokes debate over income inequality, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo dug in his heels on Monday against extending a so-called millionaires’ tax on high-earning New Yorkers, saying the income tax surcharge would place New York at a competitive disadvantage with neighboring states.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who campaigned for governor last year on the promise that he would not raise taxes, compared his resistance to renewing the temporary tax surcharge with the stand his father, former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, took against the death penalty two decades ago.

The similarity, Mr. Cuomo said, was that both positions were highly unpopular with voters.

“The fact that everybody wants it, that doesn’t mean all that much,” he said in a news conference. “I represent the people. Their opinion matters, but I’m not going to go back and forth with the political winds.”

Mr. Cuomo insisted that under no circumstances would he consider backing the extension of the surcharge, saying it would encourage residents and businesses to move to other states. He said he would support a federal millionaires’ tax, because it would treat residents of all states equally.

Kind of funny (sad) that the Working Families Party is in coalition with Ken Langone, head of Republicans for Cuomo. You know, the guy who thinks that progressives are Nazis for supporting higher taxes on the mega-rich.