By: Marc Gronich If the Education Investment Tax Credit (EITC) or, as it is now known, the Parental Choice in Education Act, fails to pass during the current legislative session it will be for several reasons and everyone will be looking for cover with no one specific person to blame. The battle over the EITC Continue Reading »
Below is the extended version of the printed column in The Jewish Press. Some of the information submitted was left on the cutting room floor due to space restrictions. Flanagan Replaces Skelos There is a new leader of the Republican majority conference in the state Senate and for the first time both houses of the Continue Reading »
Due to Shabbos and the important holiday of Shavuos I was not able to attend the Hall of Fame game in Cooperstown, Otsego County, during Memorial Day weekend. So I commissioned my esteemed compatriot, Peter A. Cristo, to take on this plum assignment. As it turns out there were no Jewish ball players participating at Continue Reading »
The Battle Over the EITC by Marc Gronich, Capital Bureau Chief Printed in The Jewish Press Friday, April 24, 2015 The state budget season this year was all about education, pitting public and private school proponents against each other over the Education Investment Tax Credit (EITC). The warring factions on one side include union officials Continue Reading »
Ever wonder why legislation that has support from a majority of Assembly members does not make it out of committee and voted on by the full body of 150 members? Well, it’s all about politics and a little bit of math. There are 150 members of the state Assembly. It takes 76 votes to pass Continue Reading »
By: Marc Gronich Just days before the state budget is due to be passed by the April 1 deadline, the controversial Education Investment Tax Credit (EITC) has hit the skids among lawmakers and their staffs The EITC would allow any individual or corporation to contribute to a scholarship foundation up to 90 percent of Continue Reading »
By: Marc Gronich Every year, February 2nd is Groundhog Day, and just like the movie of the same name it seems we’ve seen this story before. A top elected official charged with corruption – Senate Democratic Leader Manfred Ohrenstein (1987), Assembly Speaker Mel Miller (1991), Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (2008), and now Continue Reading »
For the past three weeks, since his passing, I have been thinking a lot about the 12 years Mario Cuomo served as governor. For me, good, bad or indifferent, covering the actions by the Cuomo Administration is an experience I will never forget. Many people have said recently that Mario Cuomo’s tenure did not have Continue Reading »
Any governor should take a page out of this challenge given to Governor Mario Cuomo in the mid-1980s. Accepting a dare by an intrepid reporter from the Jamestown Post-Journal, Cuomo switched positions for a day with local reporter Tim O’Brien. The reporter served in a ceremonial capacity as governor for a day while Cuomo went Continue Reading »
One of my favorite remembrances about Mario Cuomo was when he was first elected. In 1983, the newly-minted governor had to do some redecorating in the Executive Mansion because when he had a walk-through of the mansion shortly after the 1982 election, he found mirrors on the bedroom ceiling, red walls and tacky carpeting left Continue Reading »
It was October 14, 1990 when Governor Mario Cuomo walked into 770 Eastern Parkway, the Lubavitch World Headquarters in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, to meet with the leader of the Lubavitch sect of Judaism, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. It was a brief meeting, less than 90 seconds but the meeting reverberated worldwide. You Continue Reading »
In October 1984, on my way back to Albany from Washington, DC, I was listening to WTOP radio and heard about NASA accepting applications for the First Journalist in Space program. The news anchor was giving out the address to request an application while I was driving. Talk about distracted driving, I leaned over to Continue Reading »
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