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Taken for a
Ride Editorial Take Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno at his word for a
moment. Suppose that it actually is a good idea, in these days of heightened
concerns about security, to have off-duty police officers traveling on the
bridges and in the tunnels of downstate The question is why these perks have to be provided in such a brazen and unashamedly political way. If the cops -- and why not, say, nurses or doctors or anyone else who needs to rush to work in a genuine emergency -- are going to get free or reduced-cost trips across the bridges and through the tunnels in the greater New York City area, these discounts should come from their employers or from the entity that operates those bridges and tunnels. Even in the latter case, a $2 million public expenditure should have been proposed and debated out in the open, not hidden away in the political slush funds that top state leaders like Mr. Bruno control. The way Mr. Bruno envisions them, though, free or discounted rides for the cops serve as a very handy synopsis for so much of what's so hopelessly wrong with state government. The coupon books that the state Senate has designed make it painfully clear what this is really all about. There, on the back cover, are the names of Mr. Bruno and all 17 downstate Republicans up for re-election in a year when their party's control of the Senate is down to just four seats. That's about as subtle as a bridge collapse. In the loose translation of Sen. Liz Krueger, a Democrat
from To think that Mr. Bruno is still fighting for the release of this $2 million in member item money for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority from the state budget of two years ago. This was politically motivated when it was put into the 2004-05 budget, and it's politically motivated now. Mr. Bruno and his Republican colleagues ought to devote more of their attention to this year's budget battle. However inadvertently, Mr. Bruno has given the state another lesson in the arrogance of government spending. Too many legislators, in the Senate and in the Assembly as well, among Republicans but also Democrats, act as if the money they appropriate was their own. Bridges and tunnels maintained with other people's money shouldn't be reduced to a cheap route toward politicians' re-election. |
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