Cuomo Strikes National Tone In Emotional Address

For more than an hour, Gov. Andrew Cuomo outlined a thorough list of priorities, often speeding through policy points in a hurry, while relying on hundreds of power point slides to help keep him on track. Much of the agenda points were leaked or announced in recent days and his delivery came across as matter of fact, with few applause lines and no designed crescendo speeches to excite the crowd. 

It seemed almost as if he was rushing through all the business he had to so he could deliver his closing statements, where he struck a national tone and ended with emotional words for his father, Mario Cuomo, paraphrasing text from his famous 1984 speech at the Democratic National Convention, in which the elder Cuomo said: 

“We believe in a single fundamental idea that describes better than most textbooks and any speech that I could write what a proper government should be: the idea of family, mutuality, the sharing of benefits and burdens for the good of all, feeling one another's pain, sharing one another's blessings—reasonably, honestly, fairly, without respect to race, or sex, or geography, or political affiliation."

Cuomo spent the vast majority of his hour-and-25-minute speech, a joint State of the State and budget address, on two topics. Nearly 30 minutes was given to the economy, infrastructure investment, tourism and trade:

He called for $1.285 billion in state funding to pay for the Tappan Zee Bridge and to protect toll payers from hikes. He pledged to build four Metro-North railroad stations in the Bronx, joking that he would name one of them Ruben Diaz station—a reference to the state Senator who has clashed with him in the past and also the Senator’s son, the Bronx Borough President who is a close ally to Cuomo and was co-chair of his reelection campaign.

The governor also said he would lead a trade mission to Cuba, as previously reported, saying it would take place in the next 45 days, which would be before March 7^th. 

He praised the efforts of his administration in Buffalo, saying that residents and elected officials in Western New York didn’t believe him four years ago when he pledged commitment to the region, and calling the area a “turnaround phenomenon” that has received international press. 

“If you can turn around Buffalo, you can turn around anything,” the governor said, sounding a lot like a candidate on the stump in Iowa or Ohio, or one of the other rustbelt states so often up for grabs in presidential elections. 

Cuomo then spent nearly 30 minutes on education reform, reiterating a lot of his previous positions about the need for a better teacher evaluation system, and ultimately higher pay for teachers if they perform well for many years in a row. On the flip side, he called on the current 3020a system—the process by which teachers are removed from their jobs—to be overhauled, a plan likely to face a lot of pushback from teachers unions and many Democrats in the Assembly.  

The governor also pushed back from the notion that more money would solve the problem. 

“Money without reform only goes to bureaucracy,” Cuomo said.   

The governor then offered to increase funding dramatically in this year’s budget, upping it 4.8 percent, but only if the state Legislature agrees to implement the reforms he rolled out. 

Cuomo touted an increase on the charter school cap by 100—from 460 to 560. More importantly, he called to separate the current system—which provides one cap for New York City and another for the rest of the state—into one system that would potentially allow more than 200 new charter schools in the city, if approved by the Board of Regents. He also proposed an extension of mayoral control in New York City and opened the door for other mayors to receive control—while not specifically suggesting any city. And he called to pour $365 million into pre-kindergarten programs, holding to a commitment he made last year.   

The address touched on dozens of other topics, from criminal justice reform and public safety, to government reform and campaign finance reform, though much of those topics were quickly glossed over—the governor firing through power points to move the program along. 

As he neared the end, Cuomo noticeably slowed himself down to calmly deliver his most memorable points: New York’s history as a leader on emancipation, housing reform and women’s rights. He told several stories of how emergency services personnel traveled great distances from all ends of the state to Buffalo in order to help with snow removal in October, which they said was only fair, given that other New Yorkers had rushed to help them in their times of need—Hurricane Sandy and 9/11.

The governor then wrapped up his speech with a personal appeal to his father.

“Pop, wherever you are, and I think I know where you are …

Don’t let me forget what makes New York, New York.”