The Opinion Pages
California and New York are the poster states for dysfunctional government and wasteful runaway spending. Where do their newly elected Democratic governors start to fix the problems in the nation's largest and third-largest states?Jerry Brown was known as a fiscal conservative when he was governor of California from 1975 to 1983, and he tangled as often with Democratic state legislators as he did with Republicans. Mr. Cuomo has already declared his intentions to confront some in his own party as well as public-employee unions and other vested interests in Albany. What are the fundamental obstacles to reform in California and New York? How do Mr. Brown and Mr. Cuomo -- whose fathers were governors of their states in an era of big spending -- successfully confront these forces?
Read the discussion: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/11/04/the-jerry-brown-andrew-cuomo-connection/cuomo-and-brown-common-bonds-and-challenges
