Albany took a $1.6 billion bite out of the budget gap yesterday, balancing the current year's budget with a "grab bag" of one-time revenue raisers and cuts. They rejected calls to use the state's $1 billion rainy day fund or to wait to see how much fiscal relief the state will get from the pending federal stimulus package. A $12 billion budget gap still remains for next year's budget. Instead of the myraid of budget cuts and fees proposed by Governor Paterson, groups want to raise taxes on the wealthy.

The desperate, dangerous nuclear power industry has dropped a $50 billion stealth bomb meant to irradiate the Obama Stimulus Package. Senate Appropriations Committee has added a provision to provide up to $50 Billion in additional taxpayer loan guarantees that could be used for construction of new nuclear reactors and "clean coal" plants. This loan guarantee program is already highly controversial and loaded with money for polluting technologies like nuclear power and "clean coal." Adding more money to this program would have absolutely no stimulative effect on our economy, since no nuclear reactors or "clean coal" plants can be built over the two year period supposed to be covered by this bill.

The selection of little known Blue Dog Democrat Kirstin Gillibrand to Clinton's US Senate seat has set off a political firsetorm. Liberal Democrats are already threatening a primary in 2010 over her positions on immigration, gun control and peace. A Clinton protoge, her supporters argue that she will be more liberal now that she is representing the entire state rather than a conservative, rural Congressional District where Republicans outnumber the Democrats by more than 100,000. The NY Times report that the selection process has weakened the Governor while alienating the Kennedy, Cuomo and Clinton camps. Gays are disappointed that Paterson didn't pick his number two choice, United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, who is a lesbian.

Former Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno of Brunswick was indicted Friday on federal corruption charges. Bruno, who retired from the Legislature in July just before the Republicans lost control of the State Senate, is accused of using his position to steer contracts and grants to businesses that paid him a total of $3.2 million in consulting fees or other compensation from 1993 through 2006, and then hiding his tracks. Mark Dunlea writes that "
What is stunning is not the criminal indictment of former Majority Leader Joseph Bruno but that it took until the twilight of his career for it to finally happen. What made Bruno standout from the overwhelming culture of corruption not only at the State Capitol but throughout the American political system was his willingness to blatantly trumpet his belief that his personal enrichment was a legitimate goal of him holding elected office."

The Green Education and Legal Fund today said that upon his inauguration, President Obama needed to utilize the expected ceasefire in Gaza to alter existing American policy to resolve the decades-old conflict. He should insist that the ceasefire immediately result in the end of the economic blockade of Palestine and support the creation of an international peacekeeping group to replace Israel in the occupied territories to ensure that neither sides engages in military or economic attacks against the other.

Fifty million Americans are without health insurance, and 25 million are "underinsured." The U.S. auto giants are collapsing in part due to extraordinary health care expenses, while they are competing with companies in countries that provide universal health care. Barack Obama said in 2007 that "affordable, universal health care for every single American must not be a question of whether, it must be a question of how. ... Every four years, health care plans are offered up in campaigns with great fanfare and promise. But once those campaigns end, the plans collapse under the weight of Washington politics." Obama knows well the issue -- while his mother lay dying of cancer, she still had to battle the insurance industry. Yet Daschle proposes not much more than tinkering -- improving Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans Health Administration, all examples of "single-payer health care" -- in which the government is the single payer for the health care -- while preserving the inefficient, multipayer, for-profit insurance model.

The Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Healthcare – National Single Payer Coalition Steering Committee is gearing up for the second national call-in day to Congress on Thursday, January 15, 2009. Locally, newly elected Cong. Paul Tonko has indicated that he intends to co-sponsor HR 676, the federal single payer bill. Cong. Gillibrand has not yet made a commitment. In NY, groups are calling on Cong. Rangel (D-Harlem), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, to hold hearings on the fiscal impact on universal health care. A new study shows that single payer would create more than 2 million new jobs - more than our economy lost last year. As the state level, the universal health care study by the Urban Institute has been delayed yet again. It is now expected out in April, a year late.

Please join Chatham Peace Initiative to Protest the US Support of Israel's attack on the People of Gaza. Monday, January 12 from noon to 2 pm
in front of U.S. Representative Kirsten Gillibrand's office at 446 Warren Street, Hudson, NY We urge our Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand to condemn Israel's brutal attacks on a civilian population entrapped in what is commonly termed an "open air prison" created by the Israeli occupation. Also columns by Cong. Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader and Nicholas Kristoff.

Gov. Paterson issued his state of the state address yesterday. Rather than defending his budget, he discussed a new initiative to allow parents to spend $300 a month to cover their children from 10 to 29 on their health insurance policies. He wants to increased renewable energy and energy conservation, and invest in weatherizing homes. He expanded on his anti-obesity initiatives, including the soda tax and an fund to help bring more supermarkets into low-income communities. He called for reform of the Rockefeller Drug Law but was silent on campaign finance reform. A variety of consumer, education, legal and labor groups respond. Many focus on the lack of support for progressive taxes to help reduce the state budget deficit. Alliance for Quality Education, NYers for Fiscal Fairness, Working Families Party, Citizen Action, Common Cause, United Food Commercial WOrkers Union, Hunger Action Network, Legal Action Center, AQE. Meanwhile the Gang of 3 gave their support to elect Democrat Malcolm Smith the Senate Majority Leader, ending more than three decades of Republican control

More than 60 individuals rallied outside the Capitol today in Albany to support the proposed increase in the welfare grant, which has not been risen in NY in 18 years. The groups however opposed the cut in SSI benefits and wants lawmakers to tax the rich and Wall Street to help resolve the state budget deficit. They also supported a proposal to weatherize one million homes, which would create 30,000 jobs while reducing climate change.

A group of concerned New York citizens announced today that they are launching a campaign to have Governor David A. Paterson appoint long-time consumer advocate Ralph Nader to the US Senate. There are no real residency requirements for US Senate. Nader’s supporters noted that while President elect Obama has made a big point of naming many of his former Presidential opponents to Cabinet positions, he has not yet offered a position to Nader, who finished third in the general election. Obama’s first public interest job, which he credits for training him as an organizer, was with a group that Nader helped established, the New York Public Interest Research Group.

Gov. Paterson has proposed an 18% sales tax on soda and other non-fruit beverages as an anti-obesity tax which would raise $400 million a year. The revenues would however just be used for "health care" purposes rather than funding anti-nutrition measures. Nicholas Kristof lays out the public policy arguments for such a tax. Others argue that this is a regressive tax, hitting low and middle income consumers hardest, while Paterson is avoiding raising the personal income tax on the wealthy. Elie Ward of the American Academy of Pediatrics said that "soda and other sugar-sweetened drinks are the leading single contributor to obesity. Raising the price of this liquid candy will put children and teens on a path to a healthier diet. "