Today our speaker was an ever-youthful former congressman, Rick Lazio. At age 51 he is a little bit wiser and appears to be as determined as ever to serve in the political arena. Mr. Lazio will be running in the Republican primary to run for governor of NY State

According to Rick the state government is dysfunctional, no one in the room disagreed. He then proceeded to tick off a number of things to make his point.
In the measure of school performance Lazio stated that we were 37th among to 50 states.
25% of our young people leave the state.
The governor has no power to control the budget process.
Mandates are decreed by the state, but not paid for by the state, and lower level governing bodies are stuck with the task of making things happen.

He alleges that legislation is purposefully pursued so that matters cannot be resolved, resulting in the three kingmakers delivering the final decisions. Rick had other criticisms as well, but he felt that there are some positive actions that a governor could initiate.

Taxes must be reduced.
Mandates must be paid for
Enact aggressive jobs strategies, such as, building infrastructure that will later make us more competitive.
Reform the state pension funds by changing all new pensions from defined pensions plans to defined contribution plans, saving billions.
Lazio suggested that we could do a lot better with our universities by making  them a catalyst for economic growth.
He would increase the tuition costs for out of state and foreign students and using the surplus to create low-income scholarships for local people.
Rick admitted that these measures might get him an early retirement from politics, but that would be Okay with him. 

To see entire meeting  go to this link     http://proimagegroupinc.com/limba/12-18-09

***

Ernie Fazio