Future of New York Republicans: John Faso Interview

Interview by Raymond J. Keating
January 15, 2009

In 2006, John Faso was the Republican Party candidate for governor of New York. He lost to Democrat Eliot Spitzer, the crusading, former state attorney general.

Of course, Spitzer resigned from office in March 2008 due to a prostitution scandal. Nonetheless, after the November elections, the Democrats now have complete control of state government in New York for the first time in 70 years.

Meanwhile, Faso has ideas for his party and the state. He shared some of those in a January 12 interview with Long Island Sentinel.

New York Republican?

Sentinel: How did the New York Republican Party get into its current, diminished position, that is, losing all control over state government and now claiming a tiny share of New York’s congressional delegation?

Faso: “We’re at this point because the Republican Party hasn’t consistently stood for the things that Republicans are supposed to stand for, which is efficient government, belief in limited government, in lower taxes, and being for reform, whether it’s in education or in terms of making the business climate more conducive to jobs and economic growth. The Republican Party in New York State has largely abandoned any pretense of being a center-right political party, which is where it should be.”

Sentinel: Essentially they’ve become me-too Democrats in the state?

Faso: “In essence, the people of the state are rightly confused as to what Republicans in New York State stand for. I think nationally we shouldn’t underestimate the difficulty that Republicans faced in New York because of exhaustion and annoyance with policies that came out of Washington. Whether that was weariness with the war in Iraq or the fact that the Republican Congress totally abandoned any kind of principle as to fiscal responsibility.”

Sentinel: Some New York Republicans are writing off their losses in recent years to shifting demographics. Do you but that at all?

Faso: “Demographics are shifting against us. But we have not made any meaningful effort to persuade new immigrants to the state as to the principles that should get them to support Republicans. And the other factor is that because of the high taxes, particularly at the local level, because of a slow economy – many parts of upstate haven’t recovered from the seventies recession, much the less the one in the early eighties, or the early nineties, or the one in the early part of this decade – many Republicans have simply picked up and moved out of state. So, I think that, yes, there is definitely a demographic trend, but part of it is that those trends have been made worse by our inability to communicate a constructive philosophy of governance, and our collective inability to stand upon principles that would give people confidence.”

What’s the Fate of NY Republicans?

Sentinel: What then do Republicans have to do? Are they destined to go the way of the GOP in Massachusetts, where they are irrelevant? Are they managing their own decline, like the tobacco industry? Or, can the GOP recover in New York?

Faso: “I do think we can recover. And I do think, though, in order to recover it has to be more than just hoping that your opponents fall flat on their face. I think, again, Republicans have to offer constructive alternatives to improve the economy, improve the lives of families in our state. I think that in 2006 in the governor’s race, I did that. Unfortunately, we were significantly outspent, and there was such a prevailing wind that Spitzer had at this back, that it was very difficult for people to even know what we were saying. We need to have a consistent philosophy in terms of taxes and spending, in terms of government reform, in terms of education reform, and in terms of job growth. Then we also need to be able to have those messages consistently communicated, and we have to rebuild the party infrastructure in terms of the mechanics of getting elected – of running good candidates, recruiting them, helping them raise money, and giving candidates the tools that they can use to be successful. And we can’t just routinely ignore 40 percent of the state because it happens to be in New York City. That’s like having a football game where your opponent always starts the series of downs on their 40-yard line. We are always going to be playing defense unless we make a concerted effort to win votes within the City of New York.”

Sentinel: Watching your 2006 campaign, it seems that the Republican Party just fell flat in terms of providing that nuts-and-bolts political support?

Faso: “Well, I’ll give you an example. We called the state party after I was nominated and asked for the e-mail list, and I was told there was no e-mail list.”

The Faso Plan for the State

Sentinel: OK. Let’s say the last election turned out differently, what would you be doing as governor?

Faso: “Well, for one thing, the problem would be significantly smaller because my proposal in 2006 was – because of the slowing economy and the uncertainty on the horizon – that we would keep spending flat or below inflation that first year. Instead, Spitzer and the legislature increased spending by 11 percent. That has made Governor Paterson’s problem now at least $6 or $7 billion more than it could have been. I do think that this is an unparalleled series of events. The decline in the financial markets. The difficulties in the housing market. And the tremors have been exhibited throughout the national and world economies. These are not the kinds of things that should be treated lightly. They’re very, very significant difficulties. But the overriding issue right now is making sure the public understands that the permanent revenue base of the state has been changed perhaps forever. We are not going to see the kind of robust growth coming from the financial sector for the foreseeable future. Only three percent of our entire state employment is in financial services, and that’s been true for the last few decades. But we’ve gone from five percent of our revenues coming from financial services to about 20 percent of our revenue. And everyone has gotten accustomed to getting that kind of revenue bounce from a very small part of our overall economy. That has now changed. And what New York State, and its localities, and its school districts have to accommodate themselves to is living within the expected revenues that the state is going to be receiving over the next number of years. And it’s going to be substantially lower than what our expectations have been.”

Sentinel: On the policy front, what can our lawmakers do to diversify and get the economy going in New York?

Faso: “There has to be a lot of things done. The first thing we have to do is reform government, and reduce the unnecessary costs that both parties have piled on the economy of our state over the last number of decades. We need to have a property tax cap, something I ran on in 2006. And you saw Spitzer, and now Paterson, embrace the property tax cap. You also need to have significant mandate relief on school districts and local government because most of the burdens that taxpayers have to bear are directly related to mandates, which the state legislature has imprudently through the years put on the backs of localities and school districts, and therefore taxpayers. Most of these mandates relate to personnel costs, pension costs, health insurance costs, but also mandates like the Wicks Law, which arbitrarily increases the costs of building public projects throughout the state. We need to consolidate functions in government. We have too many governmental layers. We are now dangerously getting to the point where too large a portion of our total employment in the state works for government, or nonprofits, which are dependent upon government. And not enough of our employment base, and our revenue therefore, are coming from the private sector economy that creates the wealth. Governments are great at distributing wealth, and taxing it certainly, but they’re not great at creating wealth. The private sector economy is what creates wealth. And I also think we need to abandon this big state, big government notion that somehow government could create jobs through its economic development activities. Most of the economic development programs in New York State are geared at avoiding the impact of other negative policies the state has embraced, which raise the cost of doing business. So, the overriding thing government needs to do now is to lower the cost of doing business, lower the cost of running local governments and school districts, because again we have to fit our expectations into what our revenues are going to be for the foreseeable future. And the worst thing we could do would be to adopt suggestions of the Working Families Party and the labor unions and the other defenders of the status quo, and just go ahead and raise taxes on the wealthy. It may sound populist and appealing to some, but it’s a very dangerous thing to do. And it’s also self defeating because those are the people who are going to feel most affected by that kind of tax increase and are most likely to leave the state because of it.”

Sentinel: And they are the ones who do the risk taking and investing to get the economy going again.

Faso: “Well, again, it’s the private sector economy that creates the wealth. It is not the government.”

On Obama and Political Future

Sentinel: What are you thinking about in terms of your political future? Perhaps heading up the New York Republican Party?

Faso: “Obviously, I’ve spent my life in and out of government, and involved in politics. I’m obviously very interested in the fate of our state, the future of our country, and in the kind of situation we are going to leave to our children. I think it’s extremely worrisome that we are piling on new debt and new burdens on our children and our grandchildren to pay for our stimulus today. I wish President Obama well. I think that he comes to office at a very critical point in our nation’s history. I hope that he will seek advise from a variety of quarters. He certainly seems to be doing that. But I think he has got a very, very difficult road ahead of him. And I think the most important thing is to manage the expectations of people. There is not a magic wand or silver bullet that any president has that will solve these problems on a quick, expeditious basis. It took a long time to put us into this mess. And again, there is a lot of room for blame to go around on both sides of the aisle. But we need to change, to become a country that saves more, that consumes less on credit, and we need the kind of fiscally prudent approach that our parents’ generation grew up with after coming through World War II and the Great Depression. Given the demographic trends in the country, we are going to be looking at enormous increases in taxes and governmental spending to support the needs of the Baby Boomer generation when they retire. And it’s very important that we restrain the growth of those programs, particularly Social Security and Medicare, and do them in a rational way so that our children and grandchildren don’t have a lesser standard of living than we have. I think that’s really the critical generational test because right now we’re heading to a point that our children and grandchildren are going to have a very difficult road to go, and the country will be fundamentally different unless we do some things differently.”

Sentinel: But about that political question, in terms of your own future?

Faso: “I thought I skirted that very well. Before Spitzer resigned I would tell people I would never run for office again. And now I just never say never. Never rule anything in or out. I have no plans to do it. I certainly am not making any plans to do it. I’m very busy with my law practice, and with the work that I have. But you never know. I’ve been around this process long enough to know that usually the unexpected is something that happens.”

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