What Ails New York?

The three candidates running for Governor to replace outgoing Governor George Pataki all appear to have the same diagnosis of what ails New York. High taxes, high unemployment in upstate New York, and schools that don't give kids a proper education.

The Republican nominee, John Faso, a former state assemblyman, and the two men seeking the Democratic nomination, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Thomas R. Suozzi, the Nassau County executive, all gave remarkably similar diagnoses of what ails the state during a 90-minute forum in which they took questions from members of studio audiences assembled in Manhattan, Rochester, Syracuse and Rotterdam, near Albany.

I'd like to add an additional ailment; the politicians themselves.

They've taxed and spent their way into the current mess that drives businesses out of New York, have not created jobs upstate at the pace found in the rest of the country, and whose lack of enforcement and oversight of state law has meant billions have gone wasted.

Spitzer is the leading candidate to replace Pataki, and his failure to deal with Medicaid fraud in New York should be criminal. Instead of solely going after the pharmaceutical industry and financial services companies, he needed to take a far closer look at the Medicaid fraud in New York, which costs New Yorkers billions each year.

The NYT reported on this mess last year, and it isn't pretty.

James Mehmet, who retired in 2001 as chief state investigator of Medicaid fraud and abuse in New York City, said he and his colleagues believed that at least 10 percent of state Medicaid dollars were spent on fraudulent claims, while 20 or 30 percent more were siphoned off by what they termed abuse, meaning unnecessary spending that might not be criminal. "So we're talking about 40 percent of all claims are questionable," Mr. Mehmet said - an amount that would approach $18 billion a year.

That's $18 billion with a B. New York's overall state budget is north of $110 billion (again with a B). We're talking nearly 10% of the state's budget, and Spitzer has been AWOL. Then again, so have most of the politicians in Albany - who figure the best solution is to throw more money at the problem instead of pissing off the unions - particularly, Local 1199, which throws tons of money at candidates around the state and whose head - Dennis Rivera - calls the shots. Since union organization translates into votes, no one in Albany, not even those individuals mandates by law to oversee the fiscal integrity of the state's budget, appears willing or capable of standing up and cleaning up the mess.