Lew's View: State of the States - New York News | NYC Breaking News
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Lew Leone is the vice president and general manager of WNYW-FOX 5. He is taking to the airwaves with his thoughts on current affairs. It's called "Lew's View." The views expressed are not necessarily those of the station or its employees.
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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are currently both enjoying huge approval ratings. They each took to the stage last week and delivered State of the State addresses.
How did they do? Well for starters Chris Christie won on time. His speech was a brisk 42 minutes compared to the mind-numbing 78-minute speech by Cuomo.
On gun control, Andrew Cuomo was actually ranting and raving. New York already has some of the most strict gun control laws in the country but Andrew wants to do more.
"We must stop the madness, my friends," he said. "And in one word it's just enough -- it's been enough."
He used some flawed logic by linking the Second Amendment to hunting but he wins on this topic because gun control didn't come up in Christie's speech. The New Jersey governor says gun control is not a priority for him. That's because he has national aspirations and gun control doesn't go over well with Republicans.
On Education reform, Governor Christie has actually had more successes to tout but he was silent on the issue.
Cuomo laid out plans for full-day preschool in high needs districts. The self-described chief lobbyist for students left out any mention of mandate relief for the many districts choking on state-required payments and he was also mum on the fact that New York City does still not have a teacher evaluation plan. I'll call education a draw.
Christie wins on Sandy relief because it was the main focus of his speech with recovery as the top priority.
"Sandy may have destroyed our homes and our infrastructure but it didn't destroy our spirit," Christie said. "The people of new jersey have come together like never before, across party lines, across ideological lines, across ages, and races and backgrounds from all parts of our state, even from out of state, everyone has come together."
Cuomo instead announced bureaucratic commissions to study what we should do in the future.
On the respective States economies both governors proceeded cautiously. Christie didn't talk about tax cuts because it wouldn't be prudent in the wake of Sandy.
Cuomo never touched on fracking, which might be a way to help decimated upstate towns and fill the state's coffers with revenue.
My take is that we have two governors with national aspirations, and those dreams of playing on a bigger stage serve to temper or restrict bold leadership. Residents of New York and New Jersey deserve full-time leaders with both eyes on the ball and not one foot out the door.
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