After Malcolm Smith came forward yesterday with his highly anticipated version of a rescue plan, the Senate Leader turned around today and found just about no one standing behind him—not Governor Paterson, not Assembly Leader Silver and certainly not anyone from the New York newspapers.
The Daily News calls it "an epic bomb" and a " massive turkey of a plan." The Post sinks its teeth in deeper, saying, "If Senate Democrats were looking for the fastest way to run New York's transit system into '70s-era ruin, they couldn't have done much better than the snake-oil-infused compromise they proposed yesterday."
Albany has only a week to come up with a plan before the MTA is expected move forwrd on its draconian fare increase and massive service cuts. The MTA's Dale Hemmerdinger said yesterday, “We believe their math is wrong, and they just didn’t take the time to do their homework."The Times seems to back the authority up by staying loyal to the Ravitch Plan, which Smith abandoned. On Ravitch's tenure running the MTA, the paper states: "History shows that he rescued mass transit."
After Smith's plan was announced yesterday, Paterson was so disappointed in it that he said he would look to reach out to Republican members of the State Senate. Paterson called Smith's proposal simply a short-term fix and said that it's "what’s gotten Albany in trouble time and time again.” Today Minority Leader Dean Skelos said they are willing to work with the governor and are now just waiting for his call.
