Groton and Dryden Dems met last night for a nice Q&A with our Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton, who spoke with passion about her feeling that the state has enough money to pay for everything we want--insuring all children, fulfilling the requirements of the CFE lawsuit--if only the feds properly pay their fair share (and the governor agrees to raise income taxes). Barbara's chief beef with the governor, whom she otherwise seems to support, is that he promised not to raise taxes in his first year, which she feels was politically safe but ultimately unwise. Her feeling about unfunded mandates in schools is not that we shouldn't have the mandates (she says we've saved around 25 lives with those defibrillators) but that the state should fund them all.
I may sit down with Paul and put together a list of stupid mandates. Barbara may think they're all worthwhile, but I am quite sure the time lost in incorporating many of them is worth more than what the state would pay were they properly funded.
It's interesting that Senate Republicans are now talking about eliminating the property tax just as often as Dems are. And the GOP in Dryden appears to have a single issue: sustainability. What is the world coming to?
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