Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, basking in the afterglow of a legislative session that he described as “unusually successful,” said Wednesday that his top priority next year would be limiting retirement benefits for new state and city workers.
He said that his inability to win such an overhaul was the biggest failing of the session that just ended.In a wide-ranging interview with reporters and editors of The New York Times, the governor was both candid and combative as he offered his thoughts about the poor performance of schools statewide, his concern that high taxes are driving residents away and his reflections on his own use of charm and threats in an effort to win over lawmakers in Albany.
Mr. Cuomo, a longtime student of politics who has recently shied away from commenting on national affairs, called the Republican Party a prisoner of the “extreme right.” He predicted that President Obama would be re-elected despite the nation’s stubbornly high unemployment rate. And he took a gentle swipe at a predecessor, Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a fellow Democrat, who he suggested had failed to understand the delicate interplay between the governor’s office and other elements of society.