Cuomo ready to rock the boat

So far, so good.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo struck a careful balance between the urgent and the hopeful yesterday in a State of the State address that gives New Yorkers reason for cautious optimism.

Sounding comfortable and confident, the new governor was refreshingly blunt about the state's corrupt and dysfunctional government, runaway spending and crushing tax burden. He was admirably passionate about the injustices of the state's juvenile justice system. And he was savvy about including - if not co-opting - strategically important legislative leaders, who were allowed to speak at a State of the State address for the first time in memory. In their turn, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) mostly said the right things.

In Albany, of course, optimism should always be swaddled in caution. The address was billed by the governor as a self-conscious departure from the discredited past. It was held outside the Capitol building for the first time, with members of the public present and technology proudly exploited to get across the message. Yet the locale was right next door to the Capitol, the technology was mainly a cheesy and distracting PowerPoint display, and the legislative leaders who shared the microphone are Albany veterans.

The governor criticized the kudzu-like proliferation of state agencies and local taxing entities that has made government so costly and ineffective in this state. Yet he himself proposed 10 regional economic development councils to try and create jobs all over the state. He even created a commission to make government more efficient - in effect, to find ways to cut commissions. To tackle Medicaid, which by itself is bankrupting New York, the governor named yet another task force, this one composed of unions, medical providers and other interested parties, who will join forces to somehow restructure the program.

So that's the caution. But there's ample cause for optimism as well. In his address, Cuomo brought palpable energy and charisma to a capital woefully short of both in recent years. The governor also deserves credit for describing the state's problems without equivocation, insisting on action, and at least suggesting the possibility of a way forward - including limits on state spending and local property taxes.

Even Cuomo's proposed councils - unlike so many of the boards and panels whose accretion afflicts New Yorkers - mostly make sense. His business panels, for example, would compete for state funding, as would local governments that consolidate services and school districts that improve performance. Throughout, he put a welcome emphasis on incentives and the need not just to cut government, but to restructure it. He's also wise to bring stakeholders together to seek solutions, instead of simply trying to ram his own down the throats of others.

Cuomo has talked all along of his determination to bring about change. He's now showing the rhetorical and political skills that will be required to accomplish it. hN