Posted November 26, 2014 3:33 PM ET; Last updated December 7, 2014 12:49 AM ET
Nelson A. Rockefeller
On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller
by Richard Norton Smith
(Random House, 880 pp., $38)
[From article]
In 15 years as governor of New York, Nelson A. Rockefeller, popularly known as “Rocky,” was as careful with the public’s money as he was with his own—which is to say, he spent lavishly, impulsively, and often indiscriminately. New Yorkers have been paying the bill ever since.
[. . .]
He quadrupled the state budget and quintupled state debt, including off-the-books public-authority borrowing. He created the nation’s most lavish Medicaid program, designed to draw down maximum federal aid to the state while saddling New York City and county governments with half the non-federally reimbursed cost.
[. . .]
young Nelson “routinely exhausted his [allowance] in a shop on Sixth Avenue, where he lay on the floor on his stomach, devouring Tootsie Rolls and the funny pages.” Smith describes the future governor and vice president as energetic, inquisitive, and mischievous—a natural leader.
[. . .]
Rockefeller had a self-serving explanation for why he never changed parties: “If I became a Democrat, I’d always be in the position of holding the party back, whereas if I stayed a Republican, I’d be pushing the party forward.” [. . .] In This was, after all, the heyday of “modern Republicanism,” defined by Dwight D. Eisenhower as “conservative when it comes to money and liberal when it comes to human beings.”
[. . .]
He was widely second-guessed for his handling of the 1971 Attica prison riot, which culminated in a bloody retaking of the facility by state police that cost 43 lives. Voters rejected his proposed $2.5 billion transportation bond issue in 1972. Disturbed by skyrocketing crime rates and the failure of therapeutic approaches to drug addiction that he had previously championed, Rockefeller changed gears and in 1973 signed the draconian drug laws that still bear his name.
[. . .]
With increasing reluctance, he would approve a series of city tax hikes and state aid increases for Mayor John Lindsay, whose candidacy he and his brothers bankrolled. One of the virtues of Smith’s book is its colorful portrayal of the tense Rockefeller-Lindsay relationship. Rockefeller thought Lindsay was ungrateful and incompetent, and on the evidence of this book, it’s hard to disagree.
[. . .]
Initially conceived as a $250 million project that would take four years to finish, the South Mall would consume over a decade and $2 billion, including interest. The project’s cost was no obstacle, however, once the governor and Albany’s mayor, Erastus Corning II, figured out how to circumvent borrowing limits by having Albany County finance the complex with its own bonds and then lease the whole thing back to the state to cover the debt service.
http://www.city-journal.org/2014/bc1205ejm.html
E. J. MCMAHON
Hiya, Big Spender!
For good or ill, Nelson Rockefeller’s legacy lives on.
4 December 2014
* * *
[From article]
“He wasn’t a liberal. He was a problem-solver.” But Rockefeller insisted, “There is no problem that cannot be solved.” So he was a liberal, with a progressive’s reverence for “experts.” He gave the impression, his sympathetic but clear-eyed biographer says, of having “more ideas than convictions.”
[. . .]
New York’s best postwar governor, Hugh Carey, rescued the state and its largest city from the credit crisis that was a legacy of Rockefeller’s quadrupling spending in his 14 years, and of Mayor John Lindsay being even more profligate. “I drank the champagne,” said Rockefeller, “and Hugh got the hangover.”
New York, whose motto “Excelsior” means “ever upward,” this year will probably fall to fourth in population, behind California, Texas, and now Florida, which in 1950 had fewer congressional seats than New York City. “Excelsior”? Not exactly.
[. . .]
As one of Rockefeller’s top assistants said of him, “He’d have solutions going around looking for problems.” Rockefeller was, Smith says, “Too busy doing to entertain doubts.”
[. . .]
In 1964, Smith notes: “By noon of the first day of eligibility, an estimated 40,000 [Barry] Goldwater volunteers had secured nearly four times the required signatures to put their hero’s name on the California primary ballot. By contrast, Rockefeller’s paid staff required a full month to qualify.”
[. . .]
As the 1964 convention drew near, Rockefeller was urged to mobilize the “Eastern Establishment,” replying, “You’re looking at it, buddy. I’m all that’s left.”
[. . .]
As Jacob Javits, New York’s liberal Republican senator, morosely observed, “[Goldwater has] made it respectable to be a conservative again.”
http://www.bostonherald.com/
Rockefeller’s N.Y. legacy a useful warning for U.S.
Sunday, November 23, 2014
By: George F. Will
Boston Herald
[From article]
“He wasn’t a liberal. He was a problem-solver.” But Rockefeller insisted, “There is no problem that cannot be solved.” So he was a liberal, with a progressive’s reverence for “experts.” He gave the impression, his sympathetic but clear-eyed biographer says, of having “more ideas than convictions.”
[. . .]
New York’s best postwar governor, Hugh Carey, rescued the state and its largest city from the credit crisis that was a legacy of Rockefeller’s quadrupling spending in his 14 years, and of Mayor John Lindsay being even more profligate. “I drank the champagne,” said Rockefeller, “and Hugh got the hangover.”
New York, whose motto “Excelsior” means “ever upward,” this year will probably fall to fourth in population, behind California, Texas, and now Florida, which in 1950 had fewer congressional seats than New York City. “Excelsior”? Not exactly.
[. . .]
As one of Rockefeller’s top assistants said of him, “He’d have solutions going around looking for problems.” Rockefeller was, Smith says, “Too busy doing to entertain doubts.”
[. . .]
In 1964, Smith notes: “By noon of the first day of eligibility, an estimated 40,000 [Barry] Goldwater volunteers had secured nearly four times the required signatures to put their hero’s name on the California primary ballot. By contrast, Rockefeller’s paid staff required a full month to qualify.”
[. . .]
As the 1964 convention drew near, Rockefeller was urged to mobilize the “Eastern Establishment,” replying, “You’re looking at it, buddy. I’m all that’s left.”
[. . .]
As Jacob Javits, New York’s liberal Republican senator, morosely observed, “[Goldwater has] made it respectable to be a conservative again.”
http://www.bostonherald.com/
Rockefeller’s N.Y. legacy a useful warning for U.S.
Sunday, November 23, 2014
By: George F. Will
Boston Herald
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