Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Charlie Gasparino, a senior correspondent for Fox Business Network and a columnist for The Daily Beast , thinks Gov. Andrew Cuomo has his eyes fixed on the presidential prize. Mr. Cuomo’s budget this year, some people in New York suppose, is a presidential campaign announcement: “The son of Mario Cuomo—‘the liberal's liberal,’ to borrow a phrase from The Wall Street Journal—declared the state "functionally bankrupt" thanks in part to its big-government policies. He then declared war on both the welfare state and his father's old liberal voting base (and the base of the New York State Democratic Party): The public employee unions, the special-interest groups, the lobbyists representing health care and education, all of whom have for years forced the state to live beyond its means because of automatic funding increases regardless of "outcome measures" and with "no performance measures," he said. “When he gets done with them, Cuomo vowed, they w...