commentary & opinion

April 1st is the first day of New York’s fiscal year, meaning that it is the day when a new state budget should be in place. Yet April 1, 2025 will come and go, without a new state budget on the books.

Fires and natural disasters in California and the Southeast have made it hard to get homeowners’ insurance which has led people to think about how to provide it. Homeowners’ insurance has outpriced many. But providing insurance can lead people to stay put in unsustainable places. We can do better than that.

At a fire department garage in northern California, there’s a light bulb that has burned continuously for more than 120 years. So you may wonder, “Why have my bulbs at home been burning out while that one has kept shining?” It’s because a handful of powerful men decided a century ago that light bulbs should be made worse — that is, less long-lasting and dependable. And there’s a lesson in that for all of us.

In the first year of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s tenure in 2011, he successfully established a Medicaid Task Force whose job was to figure out ways to curtail the program’s increasing costs.

Watching the Trump hush money trial on TV, or rather watching talking heads on TV who scored seats to the sold-out show – though I’m not sure those woebegone journalists and legal analysts relegated to the overflow room at Manhattan Criminal Court can truly say they attended the trial – filled me with a pang of nostalgia.

There have been waves of prejudice in our country lately that are very troubling, a combination of hardened attitudes and outrageous mistreatment of different minorities, including Muslims, Jews, Asians, immigrants, Blacks, Hispanics and LGBTQs, reflecting in surveys, legal battles and attacks, much of it encouraged by Trump for political advantage.

This week Albany heads into a new phase in the development of the state budget as both houses of the New York State Legislature unveil their budget priorities.

It wasn’t my idea, but we’re getting a puppy. Don’t get me wrong. I love dogs. A home without one is just a house. Especially our house. It’s large and rambling and buried deep in the woods. If ever a domicile and its residents were crying out for canine companionship this is the place.

I have hiked many streams and creeks in the capital district. Because I love trees, I make a point of stopping to examine them in the forests and preserves that I frequent.

I’ve talked about it before but inflation’s a big political obstacle to everything else. There isn’t sufficient statutory authorization to deal with it, however. So I’d like Biden to dramatize the problem about absent legislation.