Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been laying the groundwork for a political comeback — most likely a run for mayor — by blasting current electeds for New York’s woes.
Yet the ex-gov himself bears great responsibility for those problems. If anyone is going to take him seriously he’ll need to atone.
Don’t hold your breath.
Last week, Cuomo joined ex-Gov. David Paterson in ripping fellow Democrats for their handling of crime, the migrant crisis and congestion pricing.
Days earlier, in a Post column, he inveighed against today’s “politics,” claiming it’s “driven by the activist extremes.”
Today, by contrast, “is a time of serious problems that require comprehensive solutions.”
Hmm: Guess when he was gov, problems mustn’t have been so serious, because he himself routinely caved to extremists. Recall:
- He called himself “the students’ lobbyist,” mounting a major drive for teacher accountability — only to retreat when the teachers unions outmaneuvered him, throwing kids under the bus.
- He rammed through a climate bill that’s forcing up electric bills, jeopardizing the grid and requiring hated lifestyle changes (no more gas stoves!) and expensive infrastructure changes. It’ll do little to slow global warming, but the green extremists love it.
- He helped ram through the congestion-pricing scheme, which likewise won’t do much for climate change or ease traffic but will squeeze money from people lacking mass-transit options to pay for transit that serves others.
- He bowed to radical pro-criminal progressives in signing into law “reforms” — cashless bail, Raise the Age — that fueled a 33% spike in major felonies in the city since 2019.
- He ordered devastating, overly broad lockdown rules during the pandemic and — most unforgivably — ordered nursing homes (which housed the most vulnerable) to accept COVID-positive patients, leading to hundreds of needless deaths.
Will Cuomo own up to any of this? Ha!
Sure, he now opposes congestion pricing — but only, as he put it in The Post, because this is not the “right time” for it. (Translation: Backing it now could hurt my comeback chances.)
He decries the spike in crime, but how would he undo or at least fix all those harmful reforms that bear his fingerprints?
Will he own up to the damage being done by his lunatic climate law?
Restore the psychiatric beds he cut and push to make it easier to get violent mentally ill people off the streets?
How about owning up to the failure of his lockdowns and his deadly nursing-home order?
Apologies and vows to do better aren’t enough — he has to mean it.
If it he can’t visibly show he’s learned all his lessons, any Cuomo comeback would only mean more tragedy for New York.