The 2016 presidential election has renewed the ridiculous argument that we should shed the Electoral College and decide the race by the popular vote. Because Republican President-elect Donald Trump decisively won the former - but received approximately two million less votes in the latter.
Leave aside the fact that Trump ran the electoral race, rather than the popular one - because that’s what gets you the presidency. The reason the Electoral College was established is the reason it remains vitally important today - massive cities should not unilaterally determine the fate of the entire nation.
Or a state. To wit: New York. Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won the five boroughs of New York City by more than 1.5 million votes. Get that? Nigh the entirety of Clinton’s national popular vote advantage comes from just this one city. The rest of New York State - Clinton won by a grand total of 1,260 votes. This is the state from which Trump hails - but in which he spent virtually no campaign time because the city-induced outcome was foregone.
Of course, Gotham also overwhelms, swamps and dictates state government. While the rest of New York is the swing-est of swing states - New York City guarantees that radical Leftists run Albany.
To wit: Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo, who believes in the most ridiculous of government fantasies and uses any unilateral means necessary to foist them upon New York City - and the beleaguered, reasonable New Yorkers beyond the city’s bounds.
This summer, Governor Cuomo issued a fiat that by 2030 the state must get fifty percent of its energy from renewable sources. As of 2015, the state generates only eleven percent from renewables - and that’s thanks largely to the blessing of hydroelectric power. Wind, solar and most other renewables don’t produce energy to anywhere near the degree necessary to come anywhere near fifty percent - without massive additional government subsidies to the tune of tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars.
While setting utterly unreachable renewable goals, Cuomo mandates the eradication of actual energy sources. By 2020, the state must stop getting any power from coal - from which they currently cull about ten percent of their electricity. Increasing further still the amount of fantasy energy to be wrung from uber-expensive renewables.
As if that isn’t enough inanity, Governor Cuomo has tucked some massive cronyism into his diktat. The crony in question is nuclear power company Exelon: “A Chicago-based Fortune 100 company with annual revenues of over $34 billion.” Exelon runs two upstate New York nuclear power plants - and is in the process of acquiring a third. And thanks to Crony Cuomo is about to receive an $8 billion state government check.
Paid for by beleaguered, reasonable New Yorkers beyond the bounds of the city: “(D)ownstate energy consumers (bear) a disproportionate burden of the cost of state subsidies that will support three upstate nuclear power plants.”
So that’s $8 billion in government money - just for starters, just for one crony taken from beleaguered, reasonable New Yorkers who haven't yet even begun to pay. Just wait until those renewable energy subsidies kick up and kick in - and energy prices inexorably skyrocket.
Governor Cuomo’s fantasist non-energy plan needs to be scrapped before it scraps the entire state.
And rather than our getting rid of the national Electoral College - New York state should consider implementing one of its own.