The Albany budget stalled till April 8.

0:00 Speaker 1 What is today is Governor David Patterson and a good friend, smart guy, and he really knows where things are happening in our city, our state, and our country. Governor Patterson, it’s Sunday morning. Give us an update. Where the heck are we?

0:19 Speaker 2 Well, they haven’t passed a budget in Albany. They pushed it d eight now to April eighth, which will be Monday, and that would be apropos since we had an earthquake earlier in the weekend, that we end with a total eclipse of the sun and maybe even a totally total eclipse of the issues in the budget. But we’ll have

0:39 to see about that. Right now, it doesn’t really matter if the budget is a week or too late. What matters is when it gets to about a month and then the party’s become intractable and you have situations like when I was in in two thousand and two when the budget what didn’t pass until August eleventh of that year.

1:00 Believe me, next to that, we’re doing okay.

1:02 Speaker 1 Well, I mean, but you you got it done and you got it done the right way, where you know, that was our advice. We were hoping that Kathy Hochel that Governor Hoche will hang tough and make sure we get the right deal for our city in our state because we can’t. The crime is almost you know, people

1:27 don’t trust things.

1:30 Speaker 2 Well. The governor tried to put some added protections in, particularly raising the penalties for assaults on on store workers and that kind of thing the budget. The legislature didn’t go for it. And it’s interesting. We had a guy on Thursday night named Rafeael Manguel and he is a you know, kind of senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute,

1:59 and he’s a real specialist in researching police and public safety issues. And he pointed to a study that showed that in the states that use three strikes in you’re out after three strikes, you’re in prison for life. That when the prisoner would you know, when the criminals got to their second offense and they knew that there’d be

2:22 three strikes there, you’re out, that the crime went down twenty three point eight percent, as he pointed out. Now, the bad news is that seventy six point two percent of the people went right ahead and commit and continued committing crimes. And that brings us to the fact that you pointed out on the show Thursday, they’re only really

2:39 about thirty five hundred continuing criminals. In other words, people who even when you try all the rehabilitation never works, they just go back to doing what they’re doing. And I think that what we really need to do is to now base the What I think is we really need to do is put the the each time someone

3:01 commits a crime, based on what that individual did, the penalty gets highed. So in other words, their second events, they may get three years, their third events, they may get nine years, their fourth events. To try to find a way to get this very few number of people off the streets, that crime weight would go down significantly.

3:24 Speaker 1 Yeah, but if they repeat, repeat customers criminals. Is at some point that people decide they don’t belong in the streets of New York And are there some point that somebody has to make a decision do they belong in the mental hospital or they belong in the jail?

3:43 Speaker 2 Yeah? Well, I agree with you completely. What it is is that since they are a number of people who seem to oppose these long sentences, that the sentences would be graduated so that eventually you would get them all out.

3:56 There’s a shorter way you know, and they would really be just on the third offense to then make that the three strikes are out like they’ve done in other states. And what governor attack he tried to do in New York, but he wasn’t able to get the legislators at following.

4:12 Speaker 1 Understand, what else do you have get off your chest on a Sunday morning.

4:17 Speaker 2 Well, one thing, I’ll tell you it’s a little unrelated to everything else. But sixty one years ago, I hate to say it was that long. I went to the Hayden Planetarium and we were going to have a total eclipse in New York City in June of nineteen sixty three.

4:35 And on that Saturday when we all were waiting for the eclipse, it never came till they said, well the next time it’s going to come as twenty twenty four. So I’ve waited all these years and I bet us see a total eclipse on Monday or I’m really going to be in a bad move.

4:50 Speaker 1 Well it’s going to happen. They you know, certain things don’t change, and it’s going to be I think in New York between two one and two or three thirty.

5:02 Speaker 2 Well, you know what can always kill it is the weather. If the weather changes, you wouldn’t see it. It’ll get darker, like an eclipse that occurred in nineteen seventy nine. But I want to see the real eclipse. I want to see the Sun with that ring around it. And if I don’t see it, it’s really going to ruin my spring.

5:20 Speaker 1 John Well, Governor Patterson, thank you for coming on this Sunday morning. And uh well, maybe we’ll go out on Monday and watch the eclipse together.

5:31 Speaker 2 It’d be my honor