Brain Drain Boondoggle . . .

According to the Times-Union, Mrs. Spitzer is going to lead an initiative to keep young workers from leaving Upstate New York. Mrs. Spitzer is probably a nice lady, but . . . really . . . a "summit" of the governor, his staff, community leaders, business and academic officials, etc. ? . . . to figure out "what's driving out young people and to identify public and private programs to reverse the flow" ?

If these people need a 'summit' to figure out why young people are leaving the state in droves, then we've been giving them far too much credit as leaders.

"Abraham Lackman, president of the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities, said Wall Spitzer is doing "important due diligence." He predicts 40 good ideas will surface at the summit, a few of which will end up in the governor's next budget plan."

Of course . . . There it is right there in black and white . . . more government spending!

"One idea, he said, is to improve postings of internships and job opportunities for college students."

We already have Monster.com, CentralNewYorkHelpWanted.com, and a myriad of other job sites. We also have Working Solutions. Anyone remotely interested in finding a job already has plenty of tools to discover what is available. And this guy thinks we need to improve postings to fix things! (Sounds like another Genesis project.) This is a perfect example of the "brilliant" thinking we've had in New York for too many years . . . thinking from people already heavily feeding at the public trough . . . thinking up new ways to take even more of our money.

Improving the posting of jobs does not mean a whit if jobs are not plentiful, do not pay a living wage, and do not come with a meaningful career path attached. No studies are needed to figure that out -- just ask ANYONE. And young people will stay here if they can have a meaningful career here -- just ask ANYONE.

And jobs and careers will NEVER be plentiful if we have to depend on the government to create/subsidize them. Just look at the pathetic economies that were produced by the centrally planned Soviet bloc countries. That's what NYS is becoming.

The answer to keeping young people here is the opposite of what the governor now proposes. Stop spending taxpayer money to create another program to solve a problem that the government created. The problem is too much government and unneeded government. If businesses had fewer government created expenses and less red tape, and if people had fewer taxes and fees, we would have more good jobs, a higher standard of living, and fewer "goodbyes" to our children.