The governor is juggling hot potatoes

It wasn’t that long ago when then Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking about the war in Iraq, repeated that old expression, “If you break it, you own it.” As Gov. Andrew Cuomo enters his second year in office, he will have to deal with the responsibility of owning a large number of state issues.

At the top of the list will be the new tax cap law. Hundreds of local governments are wrestling with how the cap will work and whether they can survive with legal limits on how much they can tax and how much they can spend.

The first inkling of what 2012 holds is the discussion among some school districts about doing away with neighborhood schools and assigning children to schools based on age. The so-called Princeton Model has never been tried in the vast majority of the state’s schools, and it no doubt will be tied into the tax cap law. Like it or not, this is an issue that will filter its way up to the Legislature and the governor.

The latest Cuomo appointments to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority put the governor in the position of having to respond to any public criticism of those agencies. It isn’t the governor who makes the day-to-day decisions at either agency, but right or wrong, he will be held responsible for any of their foul-ups.

Most people in the downstate region don’t pay much attention to the Port Authority operations unless they use the Lincoln or Holland Tunnel or the George Washington Bridge. The recent toll increases, which were badly needed to keep the Port Authority running, put both Governors Cuomo and Chris Christie on the hot seat. Both men agreed to reduce the size of the increases, but they took a lot of heat for decisions they didn’t make.

The Port Authority has a lot more influence on our daily lives than you can imagine. It runs the three major airports and the ground zero rebuilding, and now it has been suggested that the rebuilding of Moynihan Station be shifted to the authority as well. These facilities face enormous problems, as all of them require large infusions of cash and are way behind in rehabilitation.