The annual State of the State is the one speech each year that I look forward to with the greatest reluctance. It is essentially a list of initiatives, attended by a long description of the state’s current situation. It seldom has room for broad philosophical sweeps.
This typical recitation, which was my first formal speech of the new decade, contains most of the program directions and emphases that have characterized my administration: a strong commitment to economic growth as the source of opportunity and an equally strong commitment to help those who, through no fault of their own, are not able to benefit from even a flourishing economy.
The ideas expressed in this speech also reflected my administration’s awareness of the critical urgency of creating realistic plans for our children and their children as we approach a new millennium.
-Mario Cuomo More than Words, The Speeches of Mario Cuomo, 1993
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Lt. Governor Stan Lundine: It is a pleasure to present to you at this time. The Governor of the state of New York, Mario Cuomo.
Governor Mario M. Cuomo: Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Lieutenant Governor Stan Lundeen. Senator Ralph Marino. Senator Fred Ohrenstein. Assemblyman Clarence Rappleyea, Bob Abrams, the attorney general. Ned Regan, our comptroller. Chief Judge Wachtler, distinguished members of the Court of Appeals, I think established now as the finest high court in the country. Thank you for that. A little expensive, but great judges. Sorry, Sol.
There are two others I'd like to call special attention to, I can't see him from here, but the great, great governor of the state of New York, my mentor, the man who brought me into public service and from whom I've learned a great deal, maybe not enough, but a great deal anyway. Governor Hugh Carey. And another personal hero of mine from more recent times, a member of the legislative body who just by showing up today proves what courage and a great heart are capable of achieving. One of my favorites, Mel Zimmer, the assemblyman from Syracuse. Thank you. OK. Mel hasn't lost a thing. He whispered in my ear, "Forget the nice words. Members items, members items." Abrams is laughing like he doesn't ask...
Fellow, fellow New Yorkers, today, we take the first steps into the last decade between us and the 21st century. And I think that from here we can see the outlines of a bright and exciting new time of progress for the state, this nation, indeed for the world beyond. You and I have been working together to prepare for this moment for seven years. In 1983, the first time I had the privilege of addressing you, the state was still feeling aftershocks of our economic crisis in the 70s. We had to close a potential deficit, you'll recall, of nearly two billion dollars. And we knew that despite that, if we were to make ourselves ready for the challenges and opportunities ahead, we needed to further reduce our state income taxes and to put more people to work in this state. We knew we would have to rebuild roads and bridges, cleanse and preserve our environment, revitalize our schools, reorganize the criminal justice system and adapt our human services mechanisms to new, rapidly changing realities. And actually, the challenge was even greater than that. Unexpectedly, a terrible new drug, crack, appeared on the streets and brought with it a surge of violent crime. Homelessness appeared across the nation on a scale unseen since the Great Depression and the lethal syndrome, AIDS spread with frightening effect. And just when we needed its help most, Washington withdrew resources that we require to deal with these problems. And altogether, these were then awesome challenges. But we were not intimidated, nor did we use the federal government's failure to help as an excuse. Instead, you and I went to work. We put aside the unimportant differences between us and developed a new, vibrant ethic of cooperation, a new sense of family. A thousand times a year and more, you and I, the Democrats and the Republicans from every part of this state, came together to restore the strength of the Empire State and to prepare us for the challenges of the 90s and the incalculable potential of a whole new millennium.
Now, we must continue to look forward as we did then. But I think it is also important for us to look backward, to recall how much we've already accomplished so that we will be less daunted when we see how much is still to be done. Let's look back for a moment. Together, we have produced the two largest tax cuts in our history and the lowest income tax rate in 30 years.
New Yorkers have paid seven and a half billion dollars less in income taxes because of those cuts. Now, there were over one million more people at work in this state than there were in 1983. Our last annual unemployment rate was lower than at any time since 1970. And one hundred thousand people have left the welfare rolls in the last two years alone.
We've worked hard at economic development, our economic development efforts have made our state economy one of the largest not in the country, but one of the largest in the entire world. There are only today seven nations that have greater economies than the economy of New York State.
We knew we had to invest more in education. Well, together, we increased state aid for local schools by about 83 percent. And today, New York awards more college tuition aid to middle class and poor families than any state in the nation, as a matter of fact, listen to this, more than the next two states combined. No one even comes close to it. And thanks to you, Republicans and Democrats alike, we are first again with Liberty Scholarships, which others are now emulating and other parts of the country. Never again. Think about it, what you have achieved never again in New York's history will a student who is qualified for college be denied an education because he or she is poor. That will never again happen in the state, thanks to Liberty Scholarships.
The Excellence in Teaching Program. Do you remember how much you invested there, five hundred million dollars to do what we decided was absolutely essential, attract the very best teachers that we could to our public school system and keep them there. One hundred and fifty thousand new computers so that our children can succeed in the high tech competition of the 21st century.
Our investments in the fight against alcohol and drug abuse and related crime, is it expensive? I'll tell you, it's expensive. We're up four hundred percent. Look at the budget, up four hundred percent in what we have spent to fight drug abuse and alcohol abuse and to fight the related crime. We now have, as you know, this state police force that is at its greatest strength ever. We have nearly doubled the number of prison cells. That's part of your record. And developed the largest drug and alcohol treatment system in the United States of America. We serve 100000 people today. We serve 100,000 people every day who are in trouble with alcohol or drugs.
For seven years, the care of our most vulnerable, our most disabled, has been our first concern. It always must be. We invest more than any state in the nation for the care of people with mental illness, developmental disabilities, more in affordable housing, more help for the homeless, and more help, per capita than any state in the union, bar none, in the struggle against AIDS. Although let's make it clear, we still are not investing enough in the struggle against AIDS.
And New York State's governor and New York State's legislature, this legislature, have understood better the importance of our agricultural and rural communities and have done as much as any administration in the history of this state for those communities. The Milk Security Fund, agricultural research and development. Fairer assessments of farm lands. Millions invested in Cornell University, the seal of Quality Program, revitalization of the wine and grape industries, and the creation of the Office of Rural Affairs, incidentally, that came out of the legislature. Another first in this country, the Office of Rural Affairs.
Now you and I agreed that we should continue to lead in protecting the environment, we're the environmental state in this union we always have been. And you agreed we should continue to lead. The first acid rain control's law implemented in the United States of America. The first energy plan that's integrated with environmental needs, a huge environmental bond issue, aggressive recycling and landfill control programs. We'll need to do more this year. Thousands and thousands of acres of our natural beauty acquired and preserved.
And there's still more. Governments, if you read most analysis and retrospectives are often judged by the bricks and mortars and mortar they leave behind. I'm not sure that's the best test, but it's often used. Well, if they use bricks and mortar to measure you and to measure me, then we will do very well. We have created a dynamic period of construction. You probably didn't count it up. I did, nearly 50 billion dollars worth of bricks and mortar on our roads, our roads and bridges from one end of this state to the other. You can see today the results of the Rebuilding New York program. As a matter of fact, we did have a small not what the president would call a screw up. That's too strong a word for New Yorkers. But we had a small foul up with that rebuilding New York program. I gave strict instructions to the Department of Transportation, that those orange and black signs that they put up in the beginning of the construction work when there are all the traffic jams and your constituents complain should never bear my name. My name is supposed to go on it when they open the roadway.
There's been a...We'll see what we can do this year to erase the names where appropriate and write them in larger letters where that's appropriate. But all of that construction work that you see with all of the inconvenience that it's created, it's had results and good ones. We, if you put it together with the safer speed limits, with the nation's first seatbelt law, remember that a brilliant idea that came from the legislature, the seatbelt. I loved it. The the twenty one year old purchase age, you put it all together and in nineteen eighty eight, you produced the safest highways in the history of the state of New York. That is part of your record.
With the, with the city of New York, where completing the splendid Battery Park City that is so profitable it will produce more than nine hundred million dollars that we can take out of Battery Park to spend on other affordable housing in the city of New York. Think about it. When's the last time a government did anything like that? We invested. We invested still billions more to modernize airports, tunnels, subway, bus and commuter lines. You know how much went to the MTA for buses... Just just imagine for a moment, write down the biggest number you can think of on the blackboard of your mind and you're probably short. It was 16 billion dollars. Sixteen billion dollars. Think of it. And money for the state of New York and the city of New York public universities to build and repair public housing, the public schools, the construction fund you put together last year, wherever the need was, we were there rebuilding New York.
We made our investments boldly, but we made them prudently as well. For the first time, our budgets were balanced by gap, generally accepted accounting principles, the best standard you can apply to these governmental budgets. And last year, recall a year ago, the terrible threat, the terrible potential deficit. How are we going to do it? Well, Ralph did it and melded it, And Rap did it. And Fred did it. And I was there, too. We balanced the budget and did it so soundly that the investment raters increased the ratings for this state and that saved us 26 million dollars in borrowing on the required borrowing last year.
Now, this is not you should you should hold a minute. Let me suggest something you should applaud, but you should applaud yourselves. This is not a good record you have put together. This is a superior record you have put together. And I suspect that in this year, I think this is an election year. Jerry, they're up this year... In this election year I suspect that this record will embellish your campaign literature, that you will be handing it out. And why shouldn't you? You have to report to the people what you did for them, what you did for them. You just heard. And I'll tell you something. I'll bet you some people are surprised. I'll bet some of you didn't realize how much you had actually achieved, and that's because we live eternally with new expectations. We're pleased at what we did, but there's a new threshold to cross. I understand that. But this's going to be all over your campaign literature and I know it. And I just suggest to you, if there's a little room somewhere for one more word an "en-cuomium" perhaps. Just add Mario C-u-o-m-o, could be a footnote, just get me in there somewhere because I'd like to share it with you.
You see, the record really does prove, though, what we can do together. Despite serious challenges, because we had serious challenges and we got it done. And we should remember that because now we once again are facing new and very difficult tests as we reach for this promise of the 21st century.
Washington now admits that states have a cluster of extraordinary national problems. Drugs is a national problem. Inadequate education is a national problem. The president has said so. And everybody understands that it's a national problem. That's why you call governors to summit meetings to announce that this is not a Rhode Island problem or a Nevada problem or a New York problem. This is a national problem. So is the deterioration of roads and bridges. So is child care. That's why the president has proposed a program for child care. And so Washington has admitted that we are beset by an extraordinary cluster of national problems. At the same time, however, they are telling us that you cannot have national resources to deal with national problems. Why not? Because those national resources have to go to huge federal income tax cuts that went from 70 to 28 percent. The income tax not bad. And a lot of people applauded. A lot of people in this room applauded. And it helps a lot of people. Most of all, it helps the rich people. And that's OK. But if you acknowledge that there are national problems at the local level on Long Island and in Essex County and in New York City and everywhere else in this country, you acknowledge that there are national problems and serious ones that must be dealt with. And you say you will not put any money there because you're going to give tax cuts. You must understand that what you've really done has shifted the burden down onto the states and local governments and onto different taxes.
The real estate tax, which has gone up in this country, one hundred percent in eight years, the sales taxes which have gone up in this country, one hundred percent in eight years, which impact everybody but impact more egregiously the poorest and the middle class, because that woman with one child who's struggling to put together a house, who's making thirty thousand dollars a year when the sales taxes go up, she pays it just the way the wealthiest among us pay it, the same amount. And so what's happened is that you have transferred the burden of taxation from the federal government to the state and local government. This has nothing to do with ideology. This has nothing to do with party because this was contributed to by Democrats and Republicans not withstanding who the president was. And the net result is to put an immense pressure on Long Island, on every local government, on every school district and on the whole state. And we're feeling it. It has hurt us. At the same time, the weakness of the national economy that we were all anticipating, remember, soft landing, soft landing. Well,it's hear, the weakness is here. Department store's going bankrupt. People selling less. Nothing to panic about, of course, but the weakness is here. We are suffering from that, too. That's why Massachusetts is in trouble. New Jersey is in trouble. We're in trouble. It's not that we did something wrong. It's that the national economy, that we are to some extent influenced by, of course, is weaker.
And as a result, much of the Northeast, including us, will be facing this year large potential deficits. OK. We're not going to have the revenues this year to satisfy all of your constituents' demands, to satisfy all of our own desires. Let's understand that from the beginning. There will be no games played no matter how you look at these numbers. We will not have what we would like to have to be able to spend/. For everything, there is a season and a time. This will be the time for renewed discipline in spending. And for that reason, I am going to once again urge you to adopt an expenditure cap. I know you don't like it. I know it rankles to say we should have a law that puts a ceiling on how much we're going to spend. That should be left to us. I'm telling you, we need to send that signal. We need to let the raiders and everybody else know that we appreciate the new stringency and we can live with it. We did very well last year. We need another signal, an expenditure cap. And I ask you all to reconsider that judgment. I know you haven't favored it before. So it'll be a time for discipline. On the other hand, t his is not a time to stop our progress.
We agreed, you and I, that the prudent investments we made together in education and everywhere else were needed for this state's future. They still are. We must not risk losing the benefits of those investments, now. We must not, for example, reduce the state police. We needed at its present strength. We must not cut back our commitment to affordable housing or lose ground in the repair and maintenance of roads and bridges, or reduce the high level of support to education and human services achieved over seven years. Nor should we, no matter what else we do, ever lose the benefit of the lowest income tax rates in 30 years. We've achieved that. We've boasted of it. We've used it politically and we've used it economically. We ought not to give that up. Whatever else we do.
My proposals for this year are contained in detail in the printed pages of the message that you have. Obviously, I can't describe them all to you. But let me highlight a few important particulars. The anti-drug abuse council headed by the lieutenant governor has submitted an excellent and comprehensive report. In recent days, that report has taken on, for me and I suspect for a lot of you, a new relevance. Because a number of very well-known people in this country have suddenly advocated legalizing drugs. Six months ago, I would have laughed it off. And when Joe Galiber, Senator Joe Galiber, a good friend, talked about it, I didn't really think it was a serious proposal in the sense that it could happen. But then you add to that this sudden surge of interest in legalizing drugs and an article on the front page of The New York Times, September 24th, which I'll never forget, that said, clearly that the federal administration did not believe you should invest money in treatment because there was no real evidence that you could bring children back from crack. Now, you look it up. I've referred to it all over the United States of America and the administration never denied it. The article says, no, we're not going to give money for treatment. We don't think you can bring them back. Think about it. Think about your child coming to you addicted. Think about what you would do when you looked at the checkbook and saw how expensive it was going to be to treat her or him. Would you say to yourself, we have to save the money for the other children? Could you say that to yourself? And if you can't do it as a parent, how do you do it as a nation? So I'm concerned about legalization and we've got to stop it right here. The legalizers are saying this... Bear with me a moment. Let me make it as clear as I can. The legalizers appear to be saying that you've lost the war. You've tried everything you could and you lost. So why should we spend any more money in the combat? Let's just legalize it. And hope that if some kid or somebody else gets addicted, they're not in our family, they're in someone else's family. I want to say it as clearly as I can. I reject this idea. I believe the state must reject this idea as the abandonment of a whole generation of children and adults now caught in addiction. And of generations to come who would be caught in addiction. I would not do it to my children. We ought not let this state do it to our children. Instead of surrendering. Instead of surrendering. I am going to recommend to you that we strengthen every part of our drug effort, that we send a signal to the whole United States of America, to everybody who sees those Sunday morning shows that in New York state, whatever I'll just say about them, they know a little bit about what's happening. In New York State, they have been unequivocal. They have rejected legalization, we'll strengthen law enforcement, strengthen education, strengthen treatment, strengthen prevention. New York's agenda in nineteen ninety, I will give you an unprecedented expansion of our alcohol and drug treatment capacity, 15000 new residential treatment beds, outpatient treatment for 20000 additional people. That's going to be in the proposal that we give you. We'll give, we'll give special attention to pregnant women and mothers with young children.
Now, this year, we should demand , the Maybon program. This year, I think we should demand that every school develop a clearly articulated policy for an alcohol and drug free environment, for students and staff at the schools that teach our children should be alcohol and drug free. And we'll be talking to you about that.
And I agree with some voices in this country who have said recently it is time to hold to account the so-called casual uses, casual drug use is not victimless behavior. It contributes huge sums of money to this business, to the illegal trade, and makes victims of us all. Now, you can't simply convict every casual user, let's face it, and put him or her into prison. You couldn't afford to do that, nor should you do that. But, stiff fines, community service, a loss of motor vehicle driving privileges. These things can help deter casual users, and we ought to do them all. I recommend we use all of these and a full agenda of other measures to combat drug and alcohol abuse and related crime.
Now, one of the most important things that we can do to build a world class future for New York is to assure access to effective health care for all of our people. Despite the immense resources we've committed, and we have spent a great deal on health care as you know, our system is hurting and so are some of the people that it is meant to serve. And with that in mind, over the past several months, I've dealt with a series of representatives from all parts of the health care system and what I called colloquia around the state from one end of the state to the other. And I can tell you that after hours and hours of discussion, there's a very clear consensus. We need new and better ways to deal with reimbursement rates. That has to be changed to some extent. We need to ease health personnel shortages. That's a serious problem. We need to look at how we regulate the system and see if we can't improve the way we regulate. There is occasionally a good case made that you might be guilty in some parts of the system of micromanagement from Albany. That is a that is a situation that I agree ought to be looked at closely. And we ought to communicate with the men and women who make the system work on a regular basis.
But one thing is particularly apparent, adequate primary care in the community, that is prevention, early intervention, will reduce illness and help limit the immense, even overwhelming, expensive hospital care. It's also clear that we must do more about the 2.5 million New Yorkers who are part of the 37 million Americans who have no health insurance at all, no Medicare or Medicaid, no Blue Cross, no Blue Shield, no health insurance at all. And so this year, in the third year of the decade of the child, I will propose a new program. I think it's a unique one. I call it New York. C. H i. L. D for children's health insurance for life long development child. It will help cover every uninsured child in this state from age, from birth through age 17 for primary, for preventive care, for catastrophic illness.
Other, other parts of the Human Service Network need strengthening, too. I hope you'll agree that one group of workers in particular in the not for profit and private sector deserve a little help from us. They are the terribly burdened people who work in the foster care system. I think they deserve larger salaries. We should help supplement those salaries, and I will make a proposal to.
I hope you, hope you agree with this, too. And I'll propose it to you if you want to reject it just boo. I'd like to expand the pre-K program. What do you say? All right. How about daycare? How about how to. How about a neighborhood? This is an election year guys pay attention. How about a neighborhood based initiative to improve services for pregnant women, new parents and at risk children?
What else? Although it's all said any office. (Interruption from the crowd)
OK. OK, good. I just. All right. No, wait, wait. This is a this is a democracy, OK? No, no, no. Please Wayne, Wayne, Wayne Leave him there. OK, now let me go. All right. First of all, I hope they don't count that as my time on television. That's number one. Secondly, I hear what you're saying about AIDS. I hear it. I've heard it all over the place. No body, no group in this country is more responsive than the one you're addressing right now on the subject of AIDS. You don't anywhere in the country have the friends that you have right here. Don't lose them. All right. Stay with us. It's absolutely essential that.
Is that OK? No, no, no. Take it easy with him. OK. OK. OK. (noise from the audience)
You know what you do. Wait for me. It is not like... We ought to. We ought to say something about this. I know it's not a Republican trick. Let's get clear.
Let's get, let's get clear what happened here, OK, this this. This probably is a good break for us. These are people who have an immense need in this society. There are other groups. They're not the only one, Rap and I were talking earlier about low level nuclear waste. There are all sorts of people with serious, serious concerns. They have a perfect right to make that plain to us. I am not only not distressed that they they may chose this moment to make it. It's probably a good thing that in this state they had an opportunity to address all of you simultaneously. And it establishes this, if it establishes nothing else, you can argue with his timing and his taste. You cannot argue with his sincerity or with the enormity of the need that this community feels. This is a group of people, persons with AIDS, who die from it and have died from it and are calling out nearly in desperation and even in desperation to you and to me to do more for them. And we'll try. And my message we'll we'll have a number of programs.
It is it is absolutely essential that we continue to make education, keep education a priority. But let's be candid. As I noted earlier, while the federal government has withdrawn from its obligation to education, this state has been very, very generous. You have been very generous, it's about 83 percent over seven years. The inflation rate was, what, about twenty nine percent? You do the arithmetic,.
And that was true in a lot of areas. Law enforcement was even a richer budget. So was mental health. So was environment. Just look up the numbers. And I think that you ought to think about the fact that even if you did not raise aid to education by a penny over last year for the eight year period, you still would have given to education more than twice the inflation rate. Now you ought to think about that, and the other areas as well, when this year, inevitably the cry goes up and it will again. What have you done for me lately? You'll hear it. We always do and the people have a right to demand it. They'll say to you, we do want to know about yesterday, what have you done for us lately? Maybe what we should be asking ourselves almost as insistently is what have we done with what we have already received?
I'm perfectly willing to consider always budgets growing,If you have the wealth. Let's be honest, your needs in this state are growing more rapidly than your resources. And at one point, you're going to have to tighten up. You're going to have to bite your lip and make the hard judgment. And you're gonna have to start saying to people, I'm sorry, I know you have need. We can't afford it. And you're going to have to put a sharper eye on priorities and pick the things that are most essential.
One of the things that I think is essential is what the Salerno Commission said about fairness in their report on state aid to local schools. It's been well-received. I think we should begin to implement it. There will be some additional money in my budget proposal to implement Salerno recommendations, I think we can get greater fairness in the way we distribute our aid, if we account for regional differences in the cost of education, and if we blend attendance and enrollment in the pupil counts that determine aid. I know that's controversial, but I'm going to ask you to look at it closely this year. And we should, we should, we should try a new approach this year to education. It should be performance oriented. We should insist on clear goals. We should insist on effective measurement of student achievement. We should insist on evaluating schools by improvement in student performance. That's what we're supposed to be producing, better students. Let's measure the schools that way, not by how much money they spend, not by whether or not they are literally in compliance with the exact letter of state mandates. What are we getting by way of results? That's what I will call again this year, accountability. And I will push you and the people at the Board of Regents and the commissioner to try a new approach. I'll have a demonstration program to offer them.
Now, as we journey toward the next millennium, we have to continue to serve the needs of our most vulnerable people. I will ask you for a new supplement to SSI for persons with AIDS who are in special adult care facilities. We'll expand prevention efforts for higher risk adolescents, for women, for young children, increase help for the incarcerated or paroled persons with AIDS. You can't forget them. It's a big problem behind bars. Expand support for the community organizations which serve as our frontline of defense. And we have a solid new program this year, I'm particularly proud of for obvious reasons, was put together by the state and by help, which is the homeless not for profit corporation run by Andrew Cuomo. It will be the first public residential health care facility for persons with AIDS in the United States of America. The very first healthcare related only for persons with AIDS. It will have 66 beds. But I've asked the health department and the others to see if we can't replicate that model much cheaper, incidentally, than doing what we're doing today, as the Homeless Help project is much cheaper than hotels and is working successfully. We'll replicate it to produce hundreds of beds for persons with AIDS.
We have a very strong record with the with the elderly, we know that Paul Harenberg, Dean Skelos are at it all the time and a lot of other legislators, we should build on that record. Let's this year do expanded in-home services for the elderly. We've got to get that more efficient prescription drug bill. I know Dean is having hearings, et cetera. Let's get it done this year and put together a more efficient prescription drug bill than the one we passed a couple of years ago. I will propose to you again, mandatory Medicare assignment and a new veterans nursing home. A new state veterans nursing home, that will be our third. As part of our long term plan to assist the homeless mentally ill, we'll work with New York City to develop additional beds, including New S.R.O. and supported housing units, and will expand and improve services for people with disabilities. That is our first concern. Let's face it, the people who need us most are the ones that we need to be most concerned about and need to respond to. And if we don't respond to them, all the rest of it is a cruel hoax. Your balanced budgets, we'll take credit for tax cuts. We'll have these magnificently symmetrical ledgers in our books and we will have failed, unless we help that person who was in distress and all the other people like him. And that will be a very prominent part of the budget I give you.
Now, one reason we've accomplished I think so much in the recent past is our better understanding of a very basic principle, and that is that in New York state, as in all of the states, we get most of our wealth from our own private New York state economy. And so we must continue to strengthen our state economy, to develop the wealth we need to build, to teach, to house, to cure. But there's a powerful new reality in the world that we have to confront. We are now, as a nation, locked in a global economic struggle, which it took us too long to recognize. And that global economic struggle is as dangerous to our future as the military competition of the Cold War was. As a nation. We are not doing well in this competition. And there's nobody I know who's responsible, who will stand up and say we are doing well. Our competitors outproduce us for the first time in our history, modern history. They outsell us. They take jobs and profits that used to be ours. We used to be for all of our lifetime, until recently, we were the world's largest creditor nation. Right. We are now the world's largest debtor nation, no longer a creditor nation. We now borrow billions of dollars from people who sell us things that we used to make and sell to them. We not only borrow billions, we paid this year about one hundred and eighty five billion dollars in interest. One hundred and eighty five billion dollars in interest. No money for drugs, no money for education. No money for roads and bridges. No money for needs. One hundred and eighty five billion dollars in interest. That's a problem.
And that national weakness hurts us in New York State, at the same time this new reality of the global competition offers a golden new opportunity for trade, for investment, for jobs, for wealth and for progress. Now, while we wait for the federal government to adopt new economic policies, because they're going to have to them.
Now, while we wait for the federal government to adopt new economic policies, because they're going to have to meet the new reality, new economic policies for the 1990s at the federal level that will help seize these opportunities. We in New York state, while waiting for them, must more aggressively help ourselves. And we can.
I've mentioned to you we are the ninth largest economy in the whole world. Think of it. We take ourselves for granted. We are the ninth largest economy in the whole world. Certainly we are large enough to have considerable international influence. As a state, we've already begun to globalize our trade and investment. That's what "dua casa una tradizione" is, it's a it's an arrangement with Italy. That's what the deal that we made with Shimon Perez and Israel is. Why shouldn't we be able to lead the whole United States of America from New York in exports to Canada, in exports to the European Economic Community, in exports to the African nations, the Latin nations? Why not? And to the newly freed people of Eastern Europe? And why shouldn't we lead as well in obtaining from them, and the Asian nations as well, productive and beneficial investments here, because a lot of their money is very good for us. That's Toshiba, Westinghouse. I'm not afraid of investments from overseas if they're careful and they put people to work here. Nothing wrong with that. Why shouldn't we have them investing in ways that are good for us and lead the United States in that effort?
Well, with that in mind, I've asked our excellent director of economic development, Vincent Tese, to invigorate our promotion of exports, emphasizing high tech and agriculture two very strong areas for us and to expand our current international partnership program, because we have one now emphasizing mostly foreign languages and foreign cultures. Our extensive, and it will be extensive, global New York agenda will be an important centerpiece of our work in the months ahead. And I really do look forward to discussing it with you and working on it with you. Now, to compete in the 21st century, you're going to have to adapt our world class transportation system to speed the flow of goods. For Example, Western New York listen carefully. You have the Canadian Free Trade Agreement. Western New York Has come to life with an immense strength that is a delightful shock to those of us who remember seven years ago and the hard times. You're doing well. We have a problem. We're doing so well that the traffic is congested in the crossings between the Canadian side and the New York side. And so some time ago, I got hold of Frank White and asked him to talk to his counterparts on the other side of the line. We will begin work. We are working with Washington and Ontario to reduce the growing congestion at our points of entry that restricts access to the benefits of free trade with Canada. And we will consider a major new crossing at the Niagara Frontier, possibly a new bridge linking Buffalo and Canada.
Let me speed this up for you, because we've spent more time than I anticipated on things that weren't in the script. I spoke earlier of the need to strengthen the economy. It's time now, I think, for another solid down payment on a better and more beautiful future for the generations to follow us. You and I all, I think, agree on the following. We have to help local governments deal with solid waste. It's an immense problem. They can't do it on their own. We made a commitment some years ago and we we ought to do something more about it this year. Number two, we need to preserve our environmentally sensitive lands. We need to number three, maintain our magnificent parks and historic treasures. I propose to you that we do all of those things this year and to do them all, I will ask you a support for a 21st century environmental bond issue of one point nine billion dollars. Solid waste, acquisition, parks...
Now, there's a whole lot more that I can't go into now that's in the book. But let me let me give you just a quick litany, if you will, of some of the other things I called your special attention to. We need to raise workers compensation and a minimum wage, period. We have to do it this year.
[00:48:06] This, this month, we need to extend the protections for Mitchell-Lama residents or tens of thousands of people, tens of thousands of people could lose their homes. That is not an exaggeration. You have to do that this month.
Can we really explain to anybody can we really explain to anybody why we don't have a bias related violence bill? Can you really explain to anybody after what's happened here why we don't have a bias related violence bill? We have to get one this year. We have to get new ways to discourage investments in South Africa.
We have to get a law banning assault weapons. How do you justify letting people have assault weapons?
Here's one that you're not going to cheer, the legislators won't cheer, I hope somebody else out there has the kindness not to leave me out on a limb all by myself. Freedom and democracy are winning in Eastern Europe and everywhere else. And as that happens there, I think we should strengthen freedom and democracy here at its source in New York. And therefore, I will ask you to give New Yorkers an important extension of their right to participate in government. It would be the right of people to require us to vote publicly one way or the other. That is not to say they're going to tell us how to vote. I don't agree on turning over our discretion and our judgments to people by plebiscite. Otherwise, they don't need us. They could do it with computers, take votes every night with polls and do it that way. That would be wrong. But I do think they ought to have the right, when we have bills that the legislature decides they will not discuss for whatever reason, and the people think you should discuss them and the people think you should vote on them. I think if enough people sign a petition and say, I don't care if you vote for it or against it, but at least I want to know where you stand on campaign financing, on life without parole, on the bottle bill, at least stand up and say, "the governors a bum, I'm against it or I'm for it." I want a limited initiative and referendum that will give the people the right by petition to put the bill on the floor of the legislature.
They will not require the court of appeals to consider any new cases, though, so we're not. We need to, we need to give judge, Chief Judge Wachtler and his bench more help to at the very least, we have to do the election law of voting and judicial reforms that we've been talking about for years. And this year, the chief judge has been very patient with us, asking us for judges. And each year I tell him, yes, I know when I'm going to legislature. We did have some political difficulty. Let's face it in handling that, I think we have that resolved. I think you'll get your judges. I'm not going to make a pledge yet because who knows? We might have to trade, but we're going to, we're going to. I'm almost sure we'll get you your judges and maybe even more than you asked for.
One other subject. One other subject. And this one, I want you to read the book on, please, page 42, page 42 of the book. I think we ought to begin a broader discussion on the subject of abortion. It's a very, very important issue. I think we ought to be a little broader in the way we discuss it. I recommend to you for your special consideration, page 42.
Now, honoring our individual political affiliations, but honoring our responsibility to the whole state first, you and I have made good progress since 1983, and I'm grateful to you, frankly, as governor to the Democrats, of course, but particularly to the Republicans who, yes, we've differed from time to time and we will again this year for sure. But overall, the cooperation, I think, has been extraordinary. And I am personally grateful to Ralph and to Warren and to all of you. And it's worked well. We have made good progress. Now there's new hope for even greater progress, because finally, the Cold War that cost us trillions of dollars of our wealth is over, smothered under the rubble of the walls that for forty-five years stood between freedom and the people of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. And in place of the Cold War, we have the chance of a lifetime for peace, for building friendship, for growth, for all kinds of goodness. If we only understand this bright new chance fully and use it well, historians 100 years from now, will look back and write about the political miracle of the 20th century. Now, gradually, a significant part of our immense national budget can be freed for other purposes, some of it, yes, to reduce the crippling deficit and debt. I've made that point. You have to do that. But some of it, too, to deal with the urgent national concerns that have so burdened states like New York, drugs, education, child care, roads and bridges. These are national concerns. Part of the so-called peace dividend can help us. So far, they have declared war on drugs, but said that they did not have enough troops and equipment. Costs of education they've not been able to send us anything, nor for housing or roads and bridges, or for child care to speak of. Our Congress and the president are going to make the judgments on what to do with the peace dividend. But I believe that before they make their decisions, they should hear first from New York state and the other states, but certainly first from New York State. We should raise our voices again, all of us together the way we did, you'll recall in the successful struggle against the disallowance of deductibility of state and local taxes in 1985 and 1986. They didn't think we could win that, when we started, you recall. You and I, Republicans, Democrats helped lead the nation then and we should do it again. We should assemble all of our political strength. Stan. Ralph, Mel, Rap, Fred, Tom Whalen from Albany. Guy Molinari from Staten Island. I've already spoken to Guy. David Dinkins. He's eager to do it. Andy O'Rourke from West Chester, our Democratic attorney general. Bob Abrams, our comptroller, Ned Regan. Let's all of us go down to Washington together to see all of them, not just the White House, because I don't see the Congress sending us any money either. Let's go down to Senator George Mitchell. Let's go down to Senator Bob Dole. Let's go to Foley. Let's go to Michael. And to the White House if they'll hear from us. Let's go together and say this isn't a matter of Democrat or Republican. This is a matter of what you're going to do with this new opportunity. And we say we understand your economic problem. Of course, you need to deal with deficit and debt. We do that in our state, too. But there must be something to help us with this drug problem. Lord knows we've done enough. We've proven our right to ask you. We didn't bother you for seven years. We spent so much money here, they called us neo socialists. So you can't complain that we haven't made the effort. Now, let's go down there and lead the nation in making the case for the people who have the problems, the people in the streets.
You know, I've said over and over this country has been very good in recent years in responding to the great and powerful catastrophes, the loud catastrophes that you see on television, the earthquake, the hurricane, but not so good at dealing with all the quiet catastrophes that are killing hundreds of thousands of people, especially children, every day.
Let's go down to Washington, all of us, and let them know that we stand united in New York in our determination to give our children and grandchildren the advantages that they need to realize the full promise of the new millennium and what...What a magnificent promise it is. Just think about it for one last moment. Think of it, in two centuries, no matter how far we've come and we've come far, we've not even begun to reach the full potential of all of our people, not even begun. The work we've done together in seven years, and the work I propose we do this year will bring us closer to realizing the capacity inherent in the people of the Empire State. But imagine what we could do if we realized it perfectly. Think of it, if we could reaffirm the notion of family and reject, as we always have, when we were at our best, the proposition that we can exist and thrive as a house divided or a world divided and fractionalized. If we rejected that stupidity of worlds separated by sex, by nationality, by race, by color, by religion. Imagine if we could rouse ourselves from the indifference that we seem to have toward the growing gap between the wealthiest people in this country and the most fortunate citizens on the one hand and those who continue to struggle. If we could wean ourselves from a national addiction that has made our country the prime target for the world's drug trade, if we could free ourselves of that, if all of those who wound up in treatment centers or prisons were instead working in laboratories, working in factories, working in offices, using their gifts productively, helping themselves and helping us, imagine then what we could do in this state and in this nation. Then, if we did it perfectly, someday, not too long from now, another governor could stand here and tell his audience, or better tell her audience, that we, the generations that endured depression and global war and the decades long threat of nuclear destruction never lost hope and never stopped going forward. That we took always, as our continuing inspiration, the words of a great New York poet, Walt Whitman, who beckoned us always to come still further by reminding us that," The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung." Let's sing them together." Thank you and God bless you. Happy New Year to you!
Read the 1990 Message to the Legislature here.