Reflections From 2020 And Predictions For 2021
By anyone’s account 2020 has been a deadly, wacky and just plain weird year. Many cannot wait for the year to be over with. But wait, is 2021 going to be any different or more of the same? I predict more of the same, at least until the end of the third quarter of the year.
This year began about as normal as you can imagine with tens of thousands of Jews packed into the Secaucus, N.J.-based MetLife Stadium for an Agudath Israel of America-sponsored Siyyum HaShas. An event unbeknownst to the attendees would not have been allowed just two months later.
Back in Albany, January saw a flurry of activity on the legislative front. Assembly Republicans met to elect a new conference leader, William Barclay, 51, (R – Pulaski, Oswego County). The next day Governor Andrew Cuomo gave his highly-produced and at times emotional State of the State address with the optimistic and uplifting theme of “Making Progress Happen.”
Two weeks later the tone in state government turned somber as the governor delivered his spending plan for the coming year. The crisis budget, as it would soon be dubbed, totaled $178.6 billion, aimed at closing a $6.1 billion budget gap from the previous year. Once the coronavirus pandemic took hold and gripped New Yorkers by the neck in February, the budget would be trimmed by March to $177 billion in an agreement with state Democratic legislative leaders.
As private businesses and nonessential state services shutdown in March due to skyrocketing death rates and hospitalization from the Coronavirus, Cuomo’s progressive agenda went out the window and the bare bones budget was passed with state lawmakers meeting virtually and scrambling to set up new avenues for communication.
By mid-March, operations at the state Capitol and surrounding government buildings at the Empire State Plaza and other state office campuses across the state were shut down. Meetings were held via Zoom.
Senate Republicans chose a new leader of their conference in June. Robert Ortt, 41, (R – North Tonawanda, Niagara County).
In July, former Assembly Sheldon Silver, 76, an Orthodox Jew, was finally sentenced to serve 6.5 years in federal prison and ordered to pay a $1 million fine. In August he began serving his sentence in the federal prison at Otisville, Orange County, NY. Silver was arrested on federal corruption and money laundering charges in January 2015 and resisted prison by exhausting his appeals process since his arrest. He is scheduled to be released April 14, 2024.
On the lobbying front, Agudah Israel hosted their receptions successfully, convincing lawmakers to pass most of their agenda. Other groups weren’t as fortunate. The Orthodox Union, state lawmakers, COJO Flatbush and the commemoration of Passover with Rabbi Shmuel Butman’s annual pilgrimage to Albany including offering his opening prayers of the state Legislature were all cancelled.
For the rest of the year, the governor was in crisis mode. He spent hundreds of days detailing, in a calm, parental voice his efforts to control the virus and keep as many New Yorkers as safe as possible.
During the succeeding nine months as many as 30,000 New Yorkers succumbed to the virus and fewer than a million residents were hospitalized. Still, hospital staff was overwhelmed by the number of patients entering their facility, a move Cuomo asserts was totally avoidable if hospitals were not territorial and shared beds by transferring sick patients to nearby hospitals with available beds.
Cuomo admittedly made mistakes during the pandemic. As he focused on and hailed his successes, he transferred blame to others when decisions he made did not go as planned. A common target of his failures was the Trump administration for not moving fast enough to control the virus and not knowing the virus came to New York from Europe and not China, which impacted the West Coast pandemic.
New Yorkers anxiety levels took on an aggressive form as protestors took to the streets across the state during the summer and were sometimes violent in nature. Many of the protests were either in Jewish communities or near Jewish communities. Against the wishes of law enforcement and elected officials many ultra-Orthodox Jews held large gatherings where thousands of people attended bar mitzvahs, weddings and funerals during the pandemic, many not wearing masks and infecting prominent religious leaders who died during this plague. These events frustrated the governor and caused a rift between the democratic leader and the members of the conservative-leaning ultra-Orthodox communities across the state.
During the last nine months of this year, Coronavirus deaths bottomed out in August when 133 New Yorkers died. The largest number of deaths in a month was recorded in April with 19,876 fatalities. December is on pace to record 2,800 deaths to close out the year with 30,000 deaths due to the Coronavirus.
In the midst of this hubbub, Cuomo somehow found time to write a book describing his leadership during the pandemic. Some criticized his words and inappropriate timing of the book’s release in mid-October. Even as the book hit a few bestseller lists it met with modest sales results. The book is titled American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Looking ahead to 2021, I predict state lawmakers will remain in their districts and conduct business virtually, relying on staff and conference leaders to do their bidding for them with the governor.
Although nothing has been formally announced, Cuomo will likely deliver his State of the State message and state budget presentation in a virtual setting from his office.
Republicans in the Senate and Assembly have been relegated to being the conscience of the Legislature as democrats will begin the year holding a two-thirds, veto-proof majority in both houses of the Legislature for the first time in more than 100 years.
Democrats will likely ignore the Republicans’ platform and opt to fight amongst themselves, as though they were children, searching for a stronghold between a liberal, radical, progressive agenda as compared to a more moderate, mainstream approach to a legislative agenda. Taxes are expected to increase to partially close a budget deficit that has ballooned to $16 billion to fight the virus across the state. The tax base will also expand on items such as congestion pricing in midtown Manhattan, marijuana and gambling. Bridge, tunnel, highway, subway and bus tolls are expected to be hiked across the state as is a tax increase on the wealthiest New Yorkers. In an effort to trim the state workforce without ruffling union feathers, layoffs of state workers or the offering of an early retirement package is also likely.
Cuomo says even with all these tax increases or revenue enhancers, as is the parlance these days, the budget gap will not be closed until the incoming Biden administration provides funding to state governments. Cuomo bemoaned the fact that even as the head of the National Governors’ Association, where there are more Republican than Democratic governors, the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate would not offer any direct assistance to help heal state coffers. Cuomo is pinning his hopes on the Biden administration coming to the rescue by March, just weeks before the state budget deadline.
Finally, even with a Coronavirus vaccine being distributed at no direct cost to New Yorkers, the state won’t be back to any sort of new normal until early September when we observe Rosh Hashanah and welcome in 5782.