Suozzi Calls New York State $110 Billion Mismanaged Corporation that is on "Brink of Going Out of Business"
Suozzi Calls New York State $110 Billion Mismanaged Corporation that is on "Brink of Going Out of Business"
Said if New York were a real corporation, Eliot Spitzer would have indicted it
Democratic candidate for Governor of New York Tom Suozzi yesterday told the Association of New York State Broadcasters that the state government is akin to a failing business and challenged them to assume their roles in bringing accountability back to Albany.
Suozzi's remarks contrasted him, as a proven government reformer and experienced chief executive, with his opponents, a lawyer and a lobbyist both long-immersed in an impotent Albany establishment. Suozzi led the dramatic financial turnaround of Nassau County -- once cited as the worst-run county in the United States, and founded Fix Albany, a movement to bring accountability to New York's dysfunctional state government.
Suozzi invoked the group's sense of corporate management. "The State of New York is a $110 billion organization with a 191,000-person workforce on the brink of going out of business, run by lawyers and lobbyists," said Suozzi. "They lack the will to change - if they even know how."
Suozzi asked broadcasting executives to consider which candidate would be best to turn the "business" of New York State government around.
"If New York were a real corporation," Suozzi said, "Eliot Spitzer would have indicted it. The problem is that for the last seven and a half years he has been on the board of directors. And he hasn't even blown the whistle.
"Now we have a chance to hire a new CEO," Suozzi said in his remarks, "Would you choose the member of the board who did nothing to stop the reckless spending, who has no record whatsoever as a chief executive? The lawyer who has never had to balance a budget or negotiate labor contracts or reform a complex and grossly inefficient bureaucracy?
"Who, on top of that, has been part of the same corrupt corporate culture for seven and a half years that drove the company into the ground, who almost never challenged the company leadership or advocated for alternative strategies and who spent most of his time at the company ignoring his core internal responsibilities to file extraneous lawsuits?
Suozzi continued, "Or would you instead choose a CEO from another multi-billion-dollar company who has a proven record of turning around troubled businesses and making them profitable? Who owes no favors to the company's board of directors or anyone else inside the company? And who has a clear set of priorities for restoring the business' viability and a detailed plan for achieving them? An executive who puts the shareholders first?
"I can do it, because I have done it," Suozzi concluded.
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