California's Brown Plays His Cards While NY's Cuomo Stages More Theater

"a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." ~ Shakespeare

   Will Cuomo or Brown be first to bankruptcy?      "California faces a $28-billion budget shortfall equivalent to nearly a third of the general fund, which pays for most state programs, including schools, prisons, and health and social services."  The downhill race was stopped and a temporary table was placed between Brown and Cuomo and the game began.

And Brown placed eight of his cards on the table first.
1. Brown has already pledged to cut his own office budget by 25%.
2. Brown pledged not to raise taxes without voters' signoff.
3. Brown to take aim at several tax breaks and subsidies that have been fiercely guarded by the business lobby.
4. Brown will propose paring back the state's welfare program, reducing what doctors and healthcare providers are paid to care for the poor.
5. Brown is trimming funding for the University of California and California State University systems.
6. Brown warned school officials: "Fasten your seatbelt; it's going to be a rough ride.
7. Brown targeted a recent change to state business tax formulas that has saved corporate California roughly $1 billion.
8.  Brown wants to "Extend temporary taxes [to] erase up to $9.4 billion of that deficit."

   Meanwhile, Cuomo moves to more Albany Follies sideshow theatrics with, "New venue for Cuomo's State of State speech.",  where 2,500 seats are available to hear his oration.   Peter Abbate, a veteran Democratic assemblyman from Brooklyn said, "He can invite more of his friends and get a bigger applause. He'll stack the room."   "The new location gives Mr. Cuomo much greater control over the logistics and visuals—such as invitation lists, rehearsal access and camera locations—than he would have in the Assembly chamber."     Hopefully, he'll do better than his previous recorded message shown at a NY Albany Swampfest.

    The Albany children will recite a revised ditty to fit the revised Albany farce.

Oh, The grand Cuomo of New York,
He had ten 2.5 thousand committee men;
He marched them up to the top of the Capital hill Convention Center,
And he marched them down again.

And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down.

     Cuomo's only bluffed against Brown's cards #2 and #8 by promising not to raise taxes.  Cuomo has six other Brown cards to counter.   Raise your ante against Brown's, or fold up your Albany Sideshow and go bankrupt.