An interview with Mario M. Cuomo
Jordan, Patrick & Smith, Karen Sue
'TO SERVE & TO HAVE SOME FUN' An interview with Mario M. Cuomo AT THE beginning of 1984, many Americans west of the Mississippi confused New York Governor Mario M. Cuomo with a middle-aged...
...It's symbolism...
...So we all agree on family...
...I don't know...
...Don't talk to me about making a law...
...We all believe in redistribution, even the supply-siders...
...This is the 450th anniversary of the death of Thomas More...
...I do it that way...
...I would predict that their letter will change that emphasis...
...It depends on how you define personal ambition...
...The worst mistake we've made, those of us who have made the mistake, is spending, spending, spending, to the point where we couldn't afford it...
...Then the question comes: how do you develop a consensus...
...Maybe Bryan Hehir...
...I think there is near unanimity on the proposition that if we could avoid the necessity for abortion, that would be a better situation...
...Now, that means we can't increase welfare by 25 percent...
...The low-income housing project in Forest Hills was a success, not because I made a clever arrangement in 1972, but because somebody much smarter than I said, "Let's make it the first co-op low-income housing project in the United States...
...I think it's possible for me to win plaudits and applause as a public servant when I don't deserve it and I know I don't...
...The best way to do that is not to ask for a constitutional amendment...
...The net result is that they're at the bottom of the ladder...
...There is more than one truth living in the same world at the same time, and sometimes they are competitive...
...I don't think so...
...Since women do not comprise a single bloc of voters, what can the Democrats do to earn the support of women in 1988 ? COUMO: Well, you mean poor women and single-parent women...
...I don't like what they're doing to him...
...The U.S...
...We have geared our programs to that population...
...What I'm saying to them is, "Why don't you find practical ways like we're trying to in our state — New Avenues to Dignity...
...Go into the ghettos...
...I don't need to see his warts...
...And I use the metaphor only to suggest to people, "Look, be honest with yourselves...
...That's where the emphasis should be...
...Would the supply-siders say to you, "You ought not to use government funds to take care of the child with cerebral palsy who belongs to parents who could not care for their child...
...Do I think a Catholic would lose if he came out and said that you should be against abortion...
...Now, I haven't heard any response to that...
...Do you do it by encouraging the Supreme Court to reduce the period in pregnancy during which abortion is allowed...
...What does Bishop Malone know...
...I send you Christmas cards...
...I don't know the time well enough...
...If they order me ex cathedra, then I either quit the club or go with them...
...Why am I allowing Nine Mile Two to go forward...
...A pacifist might say, "You take my money and you spend it on a missile...
...I give greatest credit to their view of the moral substructure of the arguments...
...But it's important symbolism...
...But I don't put as much emphasis on these specifics as I do when they're talking about morality...
...Of course not...
...I've written it for eleven years...
...Would the supply-siders say to you, "If you can't get the money out of the church basket, or rather the foundation, or out of the synagogue, the child is on his own...
...Would that hurt you with Catholic voters...
...That's a distortion...
...No one struck me from my horse with lightning and said, "You used to be Mario...
...Said, "Hello, Governor...
...I want the Iowa for the jobs that are there, obviously...
...30 percent — that's high, I would guess...
...they're opposed to specific uses of government...
...31 May 1985: 335...
...I hope I'm not that sick...
...I guess you'd be stronger politically if everybody joined one club and said, "We'll call ourselves 'X.' " But I don't mind all the argumentation...
...We're perceived as hypocrites...
...The vast majority of the Republicans — even the vast majority of the conservatives and all the rest of the rational people — say, of course, you have to do something about the deficit...
...You get poor in this business...
...It's all in there...
...Daniel Maguire and some theologians are saying the bishops Commonweal: 330 are wrong...
...We hope to put 3500 women to work that way...
...That abuse discredited the liberal movement...
...I flew back from Las Vegas...
...I want to believe the Lone Ranger was the Lone Ranger...
...You believe what you believe...
...Take the Reagan rhetoric and do a jujitsu on it...
...To say, well, we can afford to be hypocrites...
...If my conscience tells me abortion is wrong, then I'm obliged to tell my daughter not to do it...
...It's worked...
...We have a 7.3 percent unemployment rate, maybe 40 percent in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and there are people saying we should pass up all these jobs...
...That's not what I'm saying...
...Novak and Buckley and these people who are beating up on poor Archbishop Rembert Weakland, they might have some support among Catholics...
...That a woman should have this option — you'll hear that...
...we can only increase it 10 percent, because we have to balance the budget...
...It worked for home relief...
...I wrote a speech, in 1974, in which I said, "The neatly symmetrical columns of a balanced budget would be the emblem of hypocrisy if the price of it was to leave out legitimate needs of people...
...With some, I'd say yes...
...I think it was an extremely good thing overall...
...That says a lot of things...
...The bishops have another pastoral — on the economy — that says the biggest problem is there aren't enough jobs...
...I could make all the money I want...
...But I have to put people to work...
...there is nothing new...
...And how much we take, how much we give, under what circumstances, that we can argue about...
...I know what they should do about abortion here: make it possible to have fewer abortions...
...Now that the presidential campaign abortion debate has subsided, what is your own assessment of that dialogue ? Do you think that Catholic Democratic politicians are under any particular handicap on this issue which will come up again and again ? CUOMO: Under a handicap...
...I'm here...
...Yes, that is my ambition...
...I said, "I'm a governor and your attendants are treating me very nicely...
...Keep the temporary employment assistance program...
...Let's buy her a little opportunity...
...you can make it if you really try...
...I live in Niagara Falls...
...The desire to get to heaven...
...It has the aspirations unfulfilled in the beginning, but this is a message that says what we should be doing...
...I'm surrounded by people with warts...
...You can say it would have been better had they opposed slavery, but you can't say it was a sin then unless you're going to condemn all those bishops as hypocrites...
...Women have been oppressed for generations...
...We said,' 'You guys can't read history because the archbishop then wasn't opposed to slavery...
...The Pelagians say, "You can make it...
...we talk about the homeless and we put up more money for the homeless than any state in the country, although we have a lot of people unhappy about the speed with which we spend it...
...What...
...That's a hard core of Catholics, and by Catholics I mean baptized people who would call themselves Catholics if you asked them...
...I do think it was good that it came up...
...A dam...
...I feel more like Lincoln, I think, who apparently didn't enjoy the headache of the power...
...They're not talking about the Iowa...
...Do you still support the notion of a verifiable nuclear freeze ? Cuomo: Yes...
...and stress on entrepreneurial activity versus the stress on collective bargaining...
...That's the problem we haven't solved...
...That's easy...
...It's never changed...
...I prefer the progressive pragmatists...
...I encourage it...
...I said, "That's a very bad analogy...
...How do you do that...
...So, you make progress, even without the definition...
...Mine may be a little bit larger, a little bit more generous, and a little bit more fun...
...It means that you've not done enough when you've made the free enterprise system strong because the free enterprise system will leave people out...
...I think it's perfectly consistent with the entrepreneurial system...
...We talk about "the poor," most of whom are women and children...
...TO SERVE & TO HAVE SOME FUN' An interview with Mario M. Cuomo AT THE beginning of 1984, many Americans west of the Mississippi confused New York Governor Mario M. Cuomo with a middle-aged crooner whose first name was Perry...
...I'm afraid of the power, frankly...
...And if that says I remember, it's important...
...They're not as expert on the economy—practical implementations—as some others...
...I don't know of any woman who calls herself pro-choice who says abortion is desirable...
...You bring down the social side...
...You're the opportunity society, right...
...So, no, I don't honestly think that I'm driven with a desire for fame...
...If seventy theologians say: "Look, Augustine and Aquinas and . . . you're not even right about the basic proposition.'' That's upsetting to a bishop, and it should be...
...That's the way I see fiscal reform...
...in not opposing slavery...
...Government can be the employer of last resort...
...You'd have to write a definition of "comparable worth...
...Everybody knows that...
...So, the balanced budget, the fiscal austerity, the GAAP balance — all of that — is a necessity, and I do it enthusiastically because it makes it possible to generate wealth and spend the wealth on good programs...
...By hard core I mean, of the people who go to church, 25...
...job creation and retraining in the hands of the private sector rather than the government...
...I in no way said that...
...That does not mean I disregard what they say...
...At the same time we cut taxes...
...I know what I believe...
...We tried that...
...I believe in collective bargaining...
...Apparently, this is how Geraldine Ferraro was interpreted, as saying there is some question about whether abortion is right or wrong in the case of rape...
...CUOMO: I reject the hypothesis that there is a kind of a contradiction...
...I believe the best example of how it works well is the state of New York where we talk about AIDS and we put up money for AIDS...
...They say, "He says that his morality is formed by consensus...
...I think surfacing this question was a good thing...
...Does he know more than I do...
...They say it's a small amount...
...We get accused by the New York Post of being too generous...
...Take down defense...
...His personality as well as his ideas have accordingly become the objects of increasing scrutiny...
...So we responded...
...I believe in collective bargaining...
...And it says that they aren't credible because they promised us a balanced budget after three years...
...I mean, I can't escape this...
...There is none...
...Not at all...
...I believe in entrepreneurship...
...Commonweal: 332 Also, pay equity...
...So, in terms of fame, wealth, and power, I don't think these are my ambitions...
...I once said, "He was surrounded by so many vestments, if he had died in the middle of the campaign, he would have been assumed up to heaven...
...You just settle...
...I believe that you can combine all these things...
...But we spent eleven years in this business and used up what savings we had, with five children...
...What do you think about this movement...
...We agree with you: Here's a woman who needs a little opportunity...
...That's the way it is...
...Reagan cited Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy over and over...
...And I reject all this talk by the bishops and archbishops that birth control isn't the same as abortion...
...What do you need that's new...
...The second point was job creation and retraining in the hands of the private sector rather than the government...
...I'll settle for that...
...I don't like what Marius did to him [Richard Marius's biography, Thomas More...
...We said it at Yale and I think it's so clear and so right...
...CUOMO: I'll not join the movement...
...I'm not complaining...
...That would shake me, too, if I were a bishop...
...Obviously not...
...But it is a must...
...And they said that it wasn't practical to do that yet...
...Okay, but you don't deny that there is something called the neoliberal movement - Charlie Peters, the Washington Monthly and all that...
...You make it on your own...
...We're working on pay equity — comparable worth, if you will — between the public employees and the state by collective bargaining...
...The question is to whom do you redistribute, and from whom...
...She said, "I never saw you perspire before...
...that motivates me, though I understand that I may not achieve anything...
...I think the Democrats should do what we're doing in this state, frankly...
...I always could...
...If you mean ambition in terms of material things — wealth — you don't get wealthy in this business...
...They're much better when they talk about our obligation for peace, against violence, etc., than they are when they talk about how many missiles...
...They don't need to be free of taxation as an incentive to build missiles, they have a virtual monopoly...
...What was your other curve ball...
...I mean no disrespect for the bishops...
...It says that they're not opposed to government...
...CUOMO: Much better than government because government is too expensive...
...And you have to do something about revenues...
...I didn't come into this business to be an accountant...
...The federal government does just the opposite...
...But if they're dumb, then we're really in trouble...
...But the Sermon on the Mount says you're supposed to take care of the prostitutes, the poor people...
...Heavy emphasis on programs that would put AFDC people to work...
...I've read all I can, but I wasn't there...
...If you want 51 percent of the people to say you're good, what do you pay...
...You take this home [drops New York budget on desk...
...You could institute a corporate minimum tax that gets General Dynamics and those great big hitters — everybody knows they're ripping us off by anybody's definition...
...It would be difficult for me to discourage such groups...
...However, you can do it in collective bargaining...
...Taxpayers pay for government jobs...
...I'm delighted I got an increase, but I would prefer 25 percent to 10...
...Liberal rhetoric with fiscal conservatism . . . CUOMO: Hold it...
...Would they say they're against all the uses of dollars for community purposes...
...answer, it's their place...
...But to get it changed on the civil side...
...Appoint the first woman to the Court of Appeals...
...Is a Catholic less likely to win political office in this country at this point in time because of his view on abortion...
...By asking them for a constitutional amendment...
...Get up out of that gutter with your wooden leg, seventy-yearold man...
...What if a Catholic came out and said you should be against abortion and you should adopt a constitutional amendment...
...That's why I made up "progressive pragmatism...
...We put 1500 people on...
...And we'll do it anonymously, and pay every penny of the cost.' Why don't you reach out to every one of these pregnant kids in the ghettos...
...We used to be for it, now we're against it...
...What do I know...
...Did it help the Democrats...
...You recently had an exchange in the National Review on the abortion issue in which you noted the pragmatic course taken by the antebellum Catholic hierarchy in the U.S...
...Of course it's not...
...You're the ones who circulated this and said let's use slavery as an analogy...
...How would you propose to balance the federal budget ? CUOMO: First of all, I think it's important that we nail down the fact that, while they call themselves conservatives, the people in command have given us the biggest budget and the biggest deficit in our history...
...We feel differently...
...You don't need what a statute requires — explicit language...
...That does not mean a tax increase that would punish the middle class and be a disincentive...
...And it is...
...Well, I don't know...
...It didn't beat the Democrats...
...How do we measure your job at Commonweal with a Howard Johnson clerk's job...
...We're not leaders...
...Call it symbolism, yes...
...Defense is redistribution...
...Recent studies portray More as a man of no small ambition...
...Proprietorship: give them a sense that it's theirs...
...I have a better example: birth control...
...Doing it by statute is practically impossible...
...It's like saying, what religion do you belong to...
...And what do you say to that...
...I very much believe in the entrepreneurial process...
...we'll erect new strategies...
...That's my philosophy.That's the budget...
...What should the bishops have done about slavery...
...I don't think in terms of neoliberal...
...First of all, I reject the label "neoliberal...
...We'll pretend you are, but when it comes to the Equal Rights Amendment, we won't even talk about it...
...With some Orthodox Jews, yes...
...Even the bishops gave up...
...You pay the price of 49 percent of the people saying you're an idiot, arrogant, stupid, and — if they can't think of anything else — probably lascivious...
...Well, it would depend...
...I want to believe Thomas More was Thomas More...
...I believe that...
...Also with some other religious and areligious people who happen to think abortion is wrong — this is not purely a religious proposition...
...Give me the whole question again...
...The U.S...
...I'll make a prediction, however, that what Fritz Hollings has said, what Bob Dole said in the beginning, what the governors have said as a group, is do it across the board...
...Western Airlines...
...the elderly," most of whom are women and many of whom are poor...
...How do you encourage the Supreme Court to do that under our legal system...
...I don't live in Tennessee...
...We must do revenues...
...It probably increased the margin a bit, but politically, I regard it as inconsequential overall...
...we talk about job creation at the lowpaying end of the wage scale, and mean jobs for "women...
...But he was on more consecrated ground, surrounded by more vestments...
...I have my own warts...
...What if a Catholic came out and said, "I'm not opposed to abortion in all cases, or in many cases" ? Do you think that a Catholic would have a chance with the Catholic community as a candidate ? Cuomo: I don't know "the Catholic community...
...Three basic tenets of neoliberalism are: liberal rhetoric coupled with fiscal conservatism...
...You can't each be an individual who survives on his or her own...
...But I would deemphasize it in favor of private sector and that's one of the disagreements I have with the bishops...
...I want the Thomas More who put his head on the block...
...Then, for example, my position on the bishops' pastoral on the economy (which I expressed again at St...
...I'm not about to condemn them...
...It's possible to get applause when you deserve it and condemnation when you deserve it, too...
...As a matter of fact, the point it makes is that you can be a bishop and differ with other bishops and other Catholics and other citizens about the practical way to implement politically a solid theological position...
...As a matter of fact, we'll change 31 May 1985: 333 our minds about the ERA...
...we'll condemn the poor...
...And I believe they can be reduced even though the Iowa exists...
...Still, the effort is worthwhile and can justify my existence...
...But is family a viable metaphor for a political process beholden to conflicting interest groups ? CUOMO: By family, I mean a sense of mutuality, interdependence, even redistribution...
...Give me the second part again...
...I came into this business to help people...
...If you define conservatism to mean: never spend money on liberal rhetoric, then it's hypocrisy...
...So, I think you have to deal with revenues...
...At least that's the way it sounds on TV — with my wife and son watching the program...
...How do you measure an elevator operator against a computer operator...
...it takes welfare money and breaks it up between an employer and a check...
...So, I listen, I try to study, I read everything...
...Go into the mean streets...
...My ambition...
...Something that's symbolic and works well, too...
...I believe in the union movement...
...To spend as useful an existence as possible and have some fun at the same time...
...The federal government says comparable worth isn't worth talking about...
...I made the practical, prudential judgment that we ought to have the Iowa...
...The problem is: How do you deal with a proliferation of abortions that everybody would admit, if they were candid, is undesirable...
...The federal government can neither deny nor confirm that there'll ever be a nuclear weapon aboard the U.S.S...
...We are putting a new emphasis on putting those women to work...
...Boy, am I glad I'm awake...
...I don't want to hear that Joe DiMaggio got the lump in pressure moments...
...Iowa...
...Widely discussed as a possible presidential candidate in 1988, he has become a key figure in discussions of the future direction of American liberalism and the Democratic party...
...one is the aborting of the potential for life...
...The last point is the stress on entrepreneurial activity rather than on collective bargaining...
...The problem exists, it hasn't been solved, and we're not near a solution...
...Most people who are arguing with us are missing that point entirely, like the radical right, the Falwells, and the supplysiders who are the fundamentalists in religious terms...
...I do think it was good that Archbishop O'Connor helped to bring it up...
...You want to avoid abortion...
...Catholic bishops' pastoral letter on peace states that not only should steps be taken to end development and deployment of nuclear weapons, but that the number of existing weapons must be reduced...
...that's family — interdependence...
...We need work...
...now you're Matthew, write me a piece...
...You redistributed my wealth...
...That's one of the reasons they're trying so hard to get the message across...
...Nothing beats it...
...the question is whether we should make it against the law as well...
...If it's $300 for example, we give you $150, give an employer $150 for hiring you...
...Do you do it by passing a law...
...Not so today...
...We had the first GAAP balanced budget [conforming to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles] in the United States...
...I believe that's consistent with fiscal intelligence and prudence...
...Set examples, give options, prove you're beautiful, prove that love works, be a leader...
...You can do it in negotiation...
...Do you want to know my philosophy...
...I wouldn't call it a handicap, a disadvantage, unless you want to describe every belief that you have that's not shared by 51 percent of the people as a handicap...
...And as long as we're perceived as hypocrites, we won't get it done...
...That's not fair...
...But they're treating everybody that way...
...By pointing a finger at them and accusing them...
...I put the bishops' peace letter along with the economy letter, and they're very similar...
...I never said I was proud of them...
...You have to be stupid to really want fame...
...Number of nuclear missiles...
...It helped feed a mood that was against the Democrats anyway...
...With the publication of his journal, The Diaries of Mario M. Cuomo: The Campaign for Governor (Random House, $19.95,484 pp), his eloquent keynote address at the Democratic National Convention last July, and his controversial speech on abortion at the University of Notre Dame, the confusion over the governor's identity has abated in the public mind...
...shot down every one...
...All of a sudden the issue arises and the archbishop says, "You might be excommunicated...
...That doesn't cost you anything...
...And the president is saying just the opposite- He's saying you're supposed to have missiles, tax cuts...
...If liberal rhetoric is contradicted by fiscal conservatism then it's hypocrisy...
...I hope they're smart enough to know that it's distortion: then they're only wicked for deceit...
...One is the taking of life...
...Let's stay with the abortion debate for awhile...
...Now, that doesn't mean the church should come out against the president...
...So have blacks and Hispanics...
...I don't want to read that Thomas More was obsessed sexually, that he should have been a monk, and married his second wife only because she was past child-bearing years and, therefore, he didn't have to stay with her...
...Are you really proud of the stand those bishops took ? Granted that a certain consensus is needed before moral principles can be translated into law, don't we remember the leaders who pushed at the edges of an existing consensus to shape a new one ? CUOMO: Now, you have raised a question which accuses me of saying that I was proud of the bishops who refused to come out against slavery...
...I have a guess that there are a number who are immutably fixed to the proposition that you can't possibly say abortion is right...
...We talk about welfare and we increase it...
...I saw you give speeches when you were sick, when you had a temperature, but you never perspired.'' And I said, "That's because I was never that worried before...
...I'm not embarrassed to admit I had no money...
...If we can keep it credible, we'll keep our strength...
...That's cheap rhetoric...
...Liberal rhetoric means government has an obligation to help those people who cannot help themselves...
...No, you negotiate...
...Would the supply-siders say that they're against the public school system...
...I keep wondering, why should we pick up anything new...
...What I'm saying is not that I form my morality by consensus: I form my morality by my conscience...
...Let's have a program that will give it to her...
...It's the only time I ever perspired...
...What about at the national level for Democrats ? Is there some sort of strategy ? CUOMO: Same thing...
...Matilda made that point...
...He said, "That's because we own 32 percent of this business...
...And so, you have to do it from your conscience...
...The captain came out...
...Well, don't you still have the definition problem...
...New York has the largest public payroll in the United States after the federal government...
...we are, and are beefing up programs there...
...Because it's not good economically...
...So, all these people like [Paul] Laxalt and the others who simplistically said at the Republican convention, "Well, family is fine for home but not for government...
...Fame...
...Now I'll take all the pieces — start at the top...
...What he said in effect was that they were all talking about new positions and it's not getting them anywhere...
...I think they're missing the obvious...
...I don't like nuclear power plants...
...So, I don't know about this movement...
...Power...
...So, that's policy the federal government is not pursuing...
...Kemp and Reagan say, in effect, we're going to grow our way out of the deficit...
...And it's possible for me to 31 May 1985: 329 be condemned, as I have been from time to time, when I don't deserve it...
...We're not a sniveling, whining society that says we're going to reduce everybody to the same level...
...That goes basically to AFDC which is 90 percent women and children...
...And I do think it was good that I went to Notre Dame, although I had great reservations about it at the time...
...The New York Times did an interesting thing [April 18]: Phil Gailey took ten or eleven Democratic candidates...
...What is the relationship between public service and personal ambition ? Cuomo: What is personal ambition...
...Do you feel the neoliberal line is going to be helpful to the party ? Clarifying issues ? CUOMO: I think the more you talk, the more you debate, the more you argue, probably the more you learn and the sharper you get...
...You bring down the defense...
...Why should I pay for the TVA...
...Give them their own house and they'll cut the grass forever...
...You say, "These jobs will move up to here.'' All the women tell their union people, "We like that arrangement, let's make the deal...
...Family is a powerful metaphor you often use to explain the responsibilities of government...
...Here, this is my philosophy...
...We're doing even more next year...
...The only way we can live is collectively...
...Let them go get their own water...
...Would a law need a consensus...
...On birth control, on abortion, I listen to the church...
...YOU RECENTLY said that a "sea of red ink" has resulted from the Reagan tax cut of $750 billion and the Reagan trillion-dollar military budget...
...The signal they want to send to women is: you're not special...
...They would say: all abortion is a fundamental matter of life and death, and if you don't feel that way I'm not going to vote for you...
...we'll forget Cardinal Bernardin's seamless garment...
...I behave that way...
...What those nineteenthcentury bishops said was, "Of course slavery is a sin...
...But not that abortion is desirable...
...Now you brought it up, bishops...
...Hey, you're always talking about work and opportunity and macho and making it the way we always made it...
...As a Catholic, you are what you are...
...I would say there is a sizable number of Catholics who wouldn't want to write it on a piece of paper or say it out loud, but who are confused on the subject of abortion even with all that the bishops are trying to do to get the message across...
...You are using the word handicap to suggest that there is something unfair about it...
...I'm against abortion...
...I have all the power I need...
...The point is, if you want to get wealthy, this is not the place to be...
...The discussion was good...
...If people ask me, I tell them, "I think it's wrong...
...But I think the Catholics are wrong for feeling that way...
...He took it as a kind of obligation...
...In that context the bishops' letter circulates [a letter from the bishops of New York State on "Abortion: the Role of Public Officials"] and now I'm accused, even before they knew what my position was, of being for abortion:' 'Were you alive at the time of slavery, you probably wouldn't have opposed slavery...
...So, the Catholic view of abortion, even if it happens to put you at a disadvantage politically, I couldn't call that a handicap...
...And so, what I said on slavery was, "You had bishops who went both ways...
...you have to deal with people too old, too weak, or who just don't get a job...
...Let's get the context: I'm here minding my own business, tortured as everybody is by the subject of abortion, a governor who isn't even at the national level...
...Proprietorship...
...First, what do you think of these ? CUOMO: One piece at a time...
...Granted that a certain consensus is needed before moral principles can be translated into law . . . 31 May 1985: 331 CUOMO: Good...
...And that's what we've done...
...One of the emphases we'll have in this state next year is Commonweal: 334 proprietorship for working people...
...That's my ambition...
...That's 3500 families that will be self-sustaining...
...By doing something else...
...we talk about "single parents," most of whom are women...
...And if the employer was going to pay $500, now he only has to pay $350, gets you cheap, and it works beautifully...
...That's going to make it less possible because then that's where you'll fight it out...
...So, I don't make it a test of how I'm performing...
...Give them a piece of the business...
...It'd be much better to encourage private-sector jobs...
...I kiss you to express my affection or my condolence...
...Take down some social spending if you will, but not meanstested programs...
...Now, a lot of people would not grant that...
...Peter's College in Jersey City on April 16), would be a disadvantage...
...I certainly hope so...
...This interview was conducted by Karen Sue Smith and Patrick Jordan on April 18 at the governor's office in the World Trade Center...
...We're different...
...But it should be the ultimate resort...
...I would say then, yes, that would hurt you, and it should hurt you because you can't adopt a constitutional amendment...
...The same has been said of you...
...I talked to a woman in the back and she said the same thing...
...But in terms of our church teaching they are both fundamental sins...
...But they haven't done it...
...It's all redistributed...
...I had to sell my diary, frankly, because I had no money...
...Why don't you open hospices everywhere for pregnant women and say to them, 'You can have the baby.' At the end of the line, you say to them, 'If you don't want to take care of the baby, we'll put it up for adoption...
...But most of the time they don't do that, as we know...
...You don't need grace from government...
...Thomas More...
...But much of it is irrelevant as a true measure of your performance or your conduct...
...That's what the arms talks are about...
...We all take, in one form or another...
...The increase in welfare, which the bishops asked for, should be 25 percent, and I'm not proud of making it only 10 percent...
...Catholic bishops' pastoral letter on peace states that not only should steps be taken to end development and deployment of nuclear weapons, but that the number of existing weapons must be reduced...
...You do it across the board the way we did in this state in 1983 to deal with the mini-deficit — only $1.8 billion...
...I think Archbishop O'Connor did a good thing, when you look back...
...If that's liberal rhetoric, I accept it...
...I think you have to do what we're doing in this state...
...We can't afford to be anything but fiscally conservative at this time in this place...
...Does anyone say: "What do you mean the Grand Coulee Dam...
...The president ran against the poor...
...The reality is the budget, and the budget describes what I am...
...I could escape this question by saying it's not my place to karen sue smith and Patrick Jordan are assistant editors of Commonweal...
...You could write down your religion, or you could refer to how you behave...
...But I wouldn't think that a position that says it's going to do something for the poor is a disadvantage politically at the moment...
...I would guess, yes, it will hurt you some...
...The chance to make the good effort in this important work and have some fun at the same time...
...see Commonweal, May 3, p. 286...
...Why do you support the basing of a new naval nuclear-strike force in New York harbor ? Do economic considerations outweigh all others ? CUOMO: It is not a new nuclear-strike task force...
Vol. 112 • May 1985 • No. 11
