Greens Claim State Legislature is Missing in Action, Fault Democrats and Republican Leaders for Avoiding Critical Issues
The New York State Greens today blasted the "bare bones budget" recently adopted by the State Legislature as just the latest example of incompetency and abuse of taxpayers by the Democrats and Republicans.
"They pass a budget not to decide how to spend money but to start their paychecks rolling while trying to pressure the Governor to spend a few days in Albany and negotiate. Despite the fact the no real budget has been adopted, legislators are not working, instead sitting home collecting a huge paycheck to do nothing other than organize campaign fundraisers and get themselves reelected. The so-called budget that was adopted is little more than a game of Russian Roulette, threatening taxpayers, schools, the environment, child care, AIDS, and the lives of the least powerful and wealthy," stated Mark Dunlea, Chair of the Legislative Committee of the New York State Greens / Green Party of New York State.
The Greens faulted the Legislature for failing to act on critical issues such as energy, genetic engineering of food, brownfield redevelopment, and electoral reform. The Greens also said that the Legislature has many more decisions that need to be made with respect to refinancing the State Superfund program, including increasing the amount of funds, shifting the cost to corporate polluters, and speeding up the timeline for cleanup of the nearly 1,000 toxic sites in the state while maintaining strict cleanup and liability standards.
The Greens called upon the Legislature to repeal the Rockefeller Drug Law, giving discretion to judges, promoting drug treatment and prevention, and providing amnesty to nonviolent offenders. Al Lewis, the Green Party's 1998 Gubernatorial candidate, has remained active with the Greens in calling for reforms in the criminal justice center, including the repeal of the death penalty.
"While the Presidential election was being stolen in Florida, New York experienced an equally bad meltdown as exemplified by the botched election and recount in the Goodman-Krueger election for State Senate, the systematic forgery of petitions by Republican Board of Election staff in New York City, and the breakdown of the Motor-Voter Law. State legislators have no shame in continuing to ratchet up the cost of campaign contributions and running for office while doing nothing on campaign finance, electoral or lobbying reform. The Democrats and Republicans are holding a going-out-of-business sale on democracy," stated Catherine Sadell, who coordinates electoral reform for the Legislative Committee.
Liz Krueger, a Democrat, was a candidate for State Senate against Roy Goodman (R-26th) in Manhattan, also running on the Green line. In throwing out the petitions filed for the Republican candidate in the Sheldon Silver (D-62) - Ray Dowd (Green) contest for State Assembly, the court found that Republican employees of the Board of Election had systematically forged signatures on petitions.
Corporate welfare meanwhile continues to skyrocket, led by the $1.1 billion proposed deal for a new trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. In the Capital District, Garden Way, a garden equipment manufacturer which received several million dollars in subsidies from the state, last week announced it was going bankrupt hours after being publicly praised by the State Economic Development Corporation for doing a great job in job creation; taxpayers will lose millions. Even minimal economic development disclosure and standard proposals such as Marty Luster's (D-125) Corporate Disclosure and Taxpayer Protection Act (A7291) fail to even come up for a vote in the lowest committee.
"Lawmakers are quick to line their own pockets but they haven't voted for a pay raise for most state minimum wage workers in decades. Economic justice is not on the legislator's agenda; New York continues to lead the country in the biggest gap between the rich and the rest of us. The $1.5 billion welfare surplus is one of the budget gambits the legislature is using with the Governor, as if the Governor who campaigned to repeal welfare was really concerned about job creation for poor people or child care or AIDS/HIV programs or the feminization of poverty. The Legislature turns a blind eye year after year to fact that one out of every four children is living in poverty, and that hunger and homelessness continue at record levels," stated Howie Hawkins of the Syracuse Greens.
The Legislature's failure to act on energy and food safety issues was soundly criticized by the Greens.
"Energy deregulation promises to be the greatest consumer and taxpayer ripoff in history, easily surpassing the Savings and Loan Scandals. In California, companies create blackouts in order to drive up their prices and profits. Not only is the Legislature failing to protect consumers, but they are doing virtually nothing to promote widespread utilization of renewable energy, conservation or efficiency programs. And while the rest of the world backs away from the use of genetic engineering, once again even minor bills to require labeling of genetically engineered foods don't even get discussed at committee meetings," stated Steve Breyman of the Rensselaer Greens. The Greens are pushing for a five-year moratorium on the planting of genetically modified foods in New York State.
The Greens also called for far more to be done to clean up the environment, starting with the stopping the reindustrialization of the Hudson River valley and sprawl. "The State and Federal Government have been criminal in their delay in holding GE accountable for cleaning up their messes. Yet after all these years of efforts to force the government to clean up the river, now we are seeing dozens of proposals for power plants, manufacturing facilities and cement plants to pollute our air and lungs while using the Hudson as their free water supply and dumping ground. We need government initiatives to green our cities, building living communities in an urban area and stopping sprawl, preserving our farmland and open spaces," stated Karl Breyman, statewide coordinator of Campus Greens USA and Chair of Rensselaer County Greens.
The Greens called for Pataki to be far more forceful and aggressive in ensuring that the EPA moves much quicker on removing the PCBs and ensuring that GE is held financially and criminally liable for the multitude of problems they have created in New York. The Greens called for far more aggressive prosecution of corporate criminals.
The Greens are running candidates throughout New York State this fall for local office and will be running a full statewide slate of candidates next year. The Republicans and Democrats are seeking to double or triple the number of votes needed to maintain party status in New York; the present vote total is 50,000, with only the Gubernatorial vote counting.
The Greens are committed to ecology, grassroots democracy, nonviolence and social and economic justice. For more info, see http://www.greens.org/ny/.
