Editorial Roundup: New York

Recent editorials of statewide and national interest from New York’s newspapers:

Take Impeachment Seriously, Senators

New York Times

Jan. 14

It would be nice to have faith that, as the Senate prepares to receive the articles of impeachment against President Trump and gears up for its role in this rare and momentous process, it will do the right thing. Confronted with a mountain of evidence that an American president abused his power by shaking down a vulnerable country for his own personal gain - and then stonewalled a congressional investigation into his behavior - senators should spare no effort in conducting a fair and thorough trial, complete with witnesses and documentary evidence.

Alas, in 2020, the Senate is led by Mitch McConnell, who has demonstrated time and again that he is more concerned with covering for Mr. Trump than protecting the integrity of the office Mr. Trump holds, the security of the nation he leads or the Constitution he swore to defend.

With few exceptions, Mr. McConnell has enjoyed the lock-step support of his caucus. So it has been notable to hear over the past few days a hint of dissension within the ranks, as a handful of Republican senators, including Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, have indicated that they oppose a straight-up dismissal of the charges against the president.

“I think we should hear the case. We have a constitutional duty to do that,” Mr. Alexander said.

This is a low bar to clear: The House of Representatives marshaled extensive and damning testimony against Mr. Trump, despite his best efforts to keep it from coming out. The debate now should be how to get the fullest possible account of the Ukraine scandal, not whether you need more than one hand to count the number of Republicans who are willing to take up the case at all.

Some senators who have expressed an openness to hearing from witnesses have suggested a “one for one” deal, where any witness called by Democrats - say, the former national security adviser John Bolton - would be balanced out by one called by Republicans - say, Hunter Biden. Of course, these two witnesses are not the same. Mr. Bolton claims to have direct and pertinent information about the president’s actions and motivations in withholding nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine; Mr. Biden is a side player being dragged in by the president and his allies to muddy the case against Mr. Trump.

Mr. McConnell, meanwhile, has yet to show that he takes any part of this process seriously. He has already announced that he will work hand-in-glove with the Trump administration as it defends the president and that he will blithely violate the oath of impartiality he is required to take. On Tuesday, Mr. McConnell mocked the House Democrats’ calls for more witnesses to testify, saying they can’t claim that the case against Mr. Trump is so strong as to be impeachable, and yet “also so weak that the Senate needs to go fishing.”

As the majority leader surely knows, this is like saying a criminal suspect might as well walk free because he intimidated the leading witness into silence. Mr. Trump was impeached, in part, precisely because he muzzled top administration officials like Mr. Bolton, who has since said he is willing to testify if subpoenaed by the Senate.

There is still time for Republicans - even if only four of them - to treat this trial with the gravity it deserves.

There is even time for President Trump to behave like, well, a president. Each of the last two presidents to face impeachment proceedings - Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon - complied with congressional subpoenas, if grudgingly. The question must be asked again: If Mr. Trump is so confident that he did nothing wrong, why does he refuse to let these officials testify or turn over key documents? And if Mr. McConnell is so confident that his party’s leader will be vindicated, why fight so hard to prevent the full truth from coming out?

Online: https://nyti.ms/35Zt5l8

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Europe’s Nuclear Moment

Wall Street Journal

Jan. 14

For months Iran has been violating the 2015 nuclear deal while promising to comply again if President Trump abandons his “maximum pressure” campaign. Germany, France and the U.K. have criticized Tehran and Washington while trying to save the accord, but on Tuesday the Europeans took a major step toward finally siding with the U.S.

Tehran announced this month that it would no longer abide the 2015 deal’s limits on uranium enrichment. This prompted a joint statement on Tuesday from the three European powers that they had formally triggered a dispute mechanism written into the nuclear deal. If the issue of Iran’s noncompliance isn’t resolved through negotiations, Europe could reimpose sanctions on Iran.

“We do not accept the argument that Iran is entitled to reduce compliance with the JCPoA,” or nuclear deal, the countries’ foreign ministers said. While “our three countries are not joining a campaign to implement maximum pressure against Iran,” they noted that Iran’s violations “have increasingly severe and non-reversible proliferation implications.”

Europe has been drifting in this direction-albeit haltingly-for the past year. In January 2019 the European Union imposed new sanctions against Iranian intelligence over terror plots on European soil. After an attack on Saudi oil facilities last summer, the Europeans in September called for “Iran to accept negotiation on a long-term framework for its nuclear programme as well as on issues related to regional security, including its missiles programme and other means of delivery.”

The conventional wisdom has been that Iran is slowly escalating, and Europe isn’t pushing back hard, in case Mr. Trump isn’t re-elected and a Democratic President returns to the nuclear deal. The latest move is Europe’s most significant because it seems the Continent may not be able to wait out Mr. Trump. They have 15 days to resolve the dispute, though the deadline could be extended by consensus.

It’s unlikely the formal mechanism will resolve anything, as Iran has ignored European requests to return to compliance in the past. The better option would be to join the American sanctions campaign. This may have seemed unthinkable a year ago, but European unity is showing more signs of stress.

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is feeling pressure to take a tougher stance on Iran, especially after Iranian police briefly detained the British ambassador last week. Now Mr. Johnson is again calling for a new “Trump deal” with Iran. As the U.K. leaves the European Union this month, Mr. Johnson may have more flexibility to work with Mr. Trump on Iran.

Tehran’s rulers are more politically vulnerable now than at any time since the 2009 protests over stolen elections. The public is angry with the regime’s lies about its accidental downing of a civilian plane, and the economy is shrinking under U.S. sanctions. This is an ideal moment to make a diplomatic push to renegotiate the nuclear accord, and having Europe on Washington’s side would make that task more feasible.

Online: https://on.wsj.com/2tZlDJw

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Don’t pass New York’s state deficit buck to counties

The Auburn Citizen

Jan. 12

Unfunded state mandates have long been a complaint of local governments. With the state property tax cap squeezing budgets, required expenses passed down from Albany have forced cuts in valued local services because they are the only discretionary measures left to balance a budget.

Despite the validity of these calls for state mandate relief, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration has frequently snapped back at any suggestion that the state isn’t doing enough to ease the burden on local governments. And at the top of their exhibit list has been the state’s efforts to limit mandatory Medicaid spending by county governments.

When this editorial board suggested in 2017 that the governor’s proposals lacked serious unfunded mandate relief, his director of state operations fired off a letter to the editor chastising us: “The governor has provided significant mandate relief for our state’s counties, towns, villages and cities over the past six years. This includes … capping the cost of Medicaid growth, saving local governments $3.2 billion into 2018.”

But three years later, that “relief” is now being framed as the biggest culprit for the state’s $6.1 billion budget deficit. Cuomo’s State of the State speech last week hinted that a big part of plugging that hole could be a move to shift a huge chunk of Medicaid spending back to the counties.

There’s no question that Medicaid spending increases have been a driver of the state’s fiscal woes. And shifting more of those costs back to county governments would be the easiest way for state legislators and the governor to address the problem.

It would also be the most irresponsible way.

Despite the cap on Medicaid spending increases on county governments, the portion the counties still pick up represents by far the largest unfunded mandate on their books. And it’s the largest in the nation, too.

In Cayuga County, Medicaid accounts for more than 10 percent of the total budget, which translates into a tax burden of nearly $200 per person, according to an analysis by the Empire Center for Public Policy’s health care analyst Bill Hammond.

Requiring a significant increase in that unfunded mandate would force palpable local tax increases or service cuts - or some combination of both.

The best approach to this problem, but also the one that requires the hardest work and the most politically challenging decisions, is to revamp the state’s Medicaid policies in order to make the program more efficient.

We hope Albany is up for the challenge.

Online: https://bit.ly/36XMEM2

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State Officials Have Run Up An Expensive Tab With Medicaid

The Post-Journal

Jan. 15

Gov. Andrew Cuomo was full of baloney last week when he laid the blame for the state’s $4 billion Medicaid deficit at the feet of counties.

The governor may have sprained a shoulder muscle patting himself on the back for the state’s decision to cap counties’ share of Medicaid spending, a decision the governor says is a large part of the reason New York has a deficit in the program. He also lays blame at the feet of county Social Services departments for improper administration of Medicaid programs that Cuomo says lead to higher costs in the program.

Capping the local share of Medicaid was a necessary decision back in 2013 - no county could have lived within the state’s 2% tax cap without capping local spending on Medicaid. The state’s decision to cap local Medicaid spending was one of the most important actions the state has ever taken to remove an unfunded mandate from local governments, and even then one could argue that New York should handle Medicaid like 24 states that pay the entire Medicaid cost with no local county share.

Besides, counties have no say in what the state program covers. There are many reasons why New York’s Medicaid program is the second-costliest program in the country behind only California, but the biggest reason is that New York’s program covers more than other states have chosen to cover. State legislators continue trying to add to the list of things New York’s Medicaid program should cover. And, we shouldn’t forget that in the heyday of the Affordable Care Act, Cuomo and state legislators jumped at the chance to expand New York’s already expensive Medicaid program by accepting federal funding under the Affordable Care Act so that Medicaid could cover low-income, non-elderly adults. The expansion added about 800,000 to the Medicaid rolls in New York state. Expanding Medicaid was popular under President Barack Obama. It may not prove to be such a great decision under the tenure of President Donald Trump in the face of federal program cuts.

We also don’t buy the governor’s arguments about improper administration in the Medicaid system. Surely there are people who try to scam the system, but Chautauqua County used to have a Medicaid czar whose job was to root out fraud and abuse. There simply wasn’t that much abuse locally to warrant having the position.

The local cap on Medicaid spending should under no circumstances be repealed. It was New York state officials who have chosen, over the years, to add programs and coverage to Medicaid without consulting with counties. It was New York state officials who chose to jump at President Obama’s federal aid to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. And New York state officials chose to implement a 2% property tax cap while adding mandates such as criminal justice reform to counties.

Decisions by New York state officials have run up quite the expensive Medicaid tab. New York state officials should find a way to pay that bill.

Online: https://bit.ly/3acvH2h

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National debt growth is not sustainable

Adirondack Daily Enterprise

Jan. 10

As we Americans celebrate the beginning of a new decade, we continue to allow a serious challenge to escalate to crisis proportions. It is the national debt - $23.2 trillion as 2020 began.

Thoughtful Americans understand the perils of a big national debt. It can increase inflation. It diverts about 7% of annual spending to interest payments (roughly $280 billion a year). It is an obligation that has to be paid off at some point.

For many years, economists and realistic politicians have warned us we simply must stop using deficit spending to fulfill our every wish as a nation. Yet not only do we continue to do that, we have stepped up the pace.

Just five years ago, the national debt was only about $17.8 trillion. By the end of this calendar year, we will have added at least $6.5 trillion to that.

The debt today amounts to more than $70,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States. That’s significantly more than the median annual household income in our area. If you are a homeowner, chances are your family members’ combined share of the national debt is higher than the value of your residence - probably a lot more.

Of course, not all of us share equally in funding the federal budget and thus, in liability for the debt. It is nearly $188,000 for every taxpayer.

Our nation’s leaders have resolved many times in the past to deal with the debt. This new year would be a good time to stop breaking such resolutions - before the consequences catch up to us.

Online: https://bit.ly/2FTjNwp