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Pledging to resolve the state's colossal budget crisis and other related issues, Democratic State Attorney General Andrew M Cuomo yesterday formally announced his bid for New York governor.
Cuomo, who is making his second attempt for the post, unveiled his plans to revamp the structure of state's government and mitigate the ballooning deficit by USD 20 million by January 2011.
"It's time for the people of the Empire State to strike back," Cuomo, 52, said at a rally yesterday in front of Manhattan's Tweed Hall. "Albany's antics would make Boss Tweed blush," Cuomo told the crowd. The state politics have been severely marred by spate of personal scandals and reports of corruption and infighting in the recent years.
Cuomo, the son of former New York Governor, Mario Cuomo, pledged that he would slash the bureaucracy's 1,000 agencies by one-fifth, cap state employees' salaries, slash spending and renew the rules of how the notoriously dysfunctional state Legislature operates. He also said that he would put the state's "fiscal house in order" without raising taxes or borrowing money.
According to the polls, Cuomo is the front runner to be New York Governor. Douglas Muzzio, a public affairs professor at New York's Baruch College, said that Cuomo's speech was to increase voters' expectations and present himself as the one who could fix all the problems.
"He'll have to dish pain," Muzzio said, "but he has to demonstrate the pain is worth it — that he can deliver and produce the good effects down the road. He's a smart enough politician to know that's a tricky tradeoff."
Cuomo had made his first bid for governor in 2002, but he pulled out of the race before the primary after realising that he would lose the poll. Soon after he was caught in some personal issues which ended in a messy divorce from the late Robert F. Kennedy's daughter, Kerry. Cuomo has three daughters from Kerry.
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