Consolidated Spitzer

And the winner of this week’s gubernatorial debate between Democrats Eliot Spitzer and Thomas Suozzi was … Republican John Faso. Both Messrs. Spitzer and Suozzi said they’d close the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Westchester County, this after a week of 95 degree heat that left tens of thousands of Queens residents without power. The nuclear plant provides 2,000 megawatts of electricity, or about 11% of the state’s supply, without supporting Middle East oil potentates or creating the pollution generated by burning coal.After watching the debate, we rang Mr. Faso and asked him about Indian Point. “It’s amazing that they would have answered the question that way,” he said of the Democrats. “We need more generating capacity, not less.” Mr. Faso noted that closing Indian Point would mean that businesses would close for lack of electricity. “Air conditioning wouldn’t work,” Mr. Faso said.It’s true that Consolidated Edison is claiming that the power outage in Queens was a problem not of supply but of delivery. Maybe so. But everyone agrees that if New York is to keep growing economically, it will need more power. And given the broad political consensus emerging about the need to wean American off its “addiction” to Middle East oil — and the Democratic aversion to offshore drilling or drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and, in the case of Senators Kennedy and Kerry, a similar aversion to proposed windmills off Hyannisport or Nantucket — nuclear is a sensible energy alternative. Mr. Spitzer has sued Midwest coal plants about their pollution, and he’s against nuclear energy at Indian Point. How is he going to keep warm — burning all his campaign cash from the trial lawyers?While Mr. Spitzer was advocating closing Indian Point, he was so exercised about the Queens blackout that he peremptorily declared that “many people’ at Con Edison should lose their jobs as a consequence. Mayor Bloomberg, in a typically calm and rationalist approach, has refrained from demagoguery. Mr. Spitzer is opposed to blackouts caused by Con Ed, but he seems to want to cause blackouts himself by closing Indian Point. Maybe Mr. Spitzer thinks he could power the entire New York economy from the energy derived from the heat of his legendary temper. Psycho-thermal power.It doesn’t add up any more than do the spending promises Mr. Spitzer made in the debate. He promised universal health care coverage, along with between $4 billion and $6 billion a year more in spending on New York City schools, an irresponsible promise, considering that, as the sitting attorney general of New York, Mr. Spitzer is representing the state in the legal battle over the schools spending. Mr. Faso points out that the legislature is never going to add spending just for New York City schools without also adding it for schools upstate, which means Mr. Spitzer’s additional $4 billion or more in spending on New York City schools will add between $8 billion or $12 billion a year in school spending statewide.Given that New York already spends more on a pupil in primary and secondary education than in 48 other states and the District of Columbia, with only middling results, and given that we already have the highest combined state and local tax burden in the nation, it’s hard to see the logic of ramping up state spending so aggressively. It’d be like shutting off a big power plant in the middle of peak summer demand. Mr. Faso said, speaking of the people of New York, “Spitzer’s going to raise their taxes. When they figure that out, they won’t vote for him.” He may be wrong about that — we’ll see — but sooner or later the consequences will be faced.

Consolidated Spitzer

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