The unrelenting drumbeat of cynicism about public service seems permanent. Call it "dysfunction," or a "culture of corruption"; it's a widely held view of Albany.
It's not true. There is corruption and there is ineptitude and there is manipulation. But the statewide electeds, and the Legislature, are by and large peopled who honestly try to do their best.
That's not a reason to accept corruption and ineptitude.
Prosecutors need to dig and flush out the idiots and felons. But the institutions and the people in them are a rough reflection of who we are as a people, and that's a good thing.
Sometimes, an individual manages to be part of the Albany process and elevate both himself and the things he touches. Hugh Carey, Stanley Fink and Warren Anderson, the original three men in a room, are examples.
So is Richard Ravitch. A bureaucrat, a businessman, a candidate, a statewide official, he remains living proof that honor and public service go hand in hand. He has just written a book that reminds us of both his career and the reason it matters.
The book's short title is "So Much To Do." It's a good, funny read. Hugh Carey's attempt to arrange a seder at the St. Regis Hotel is one of two dozen stories that will make you laugh. It's also notable for its insistence that the public arena is the most important of America's career opportunities, and that politics is an honorable vocation.
Ravitch left a career as a builder to run the MTA, serve as lieutenant governor, invent an escape for the financial meltdown of the 1970s, participate in the great social upheavals of the 1960s, become and remain a friend of bankers and labor leaders alike. Now 80, he's unrelentingly committed and active, most recently in sorting out the Detroit bankruptcy.
The book is most persistent and persuasive about the finances of government, how we tax, borrow and spend. The same problems that brought him into public life in 1975 remain Albany's central concerns today, as they have been since the Republic was founded. The solutions he advocated in 1975 remain a pathway to stability and progress. Maybe we should chip in and buy copies of the book for the governor and the Legislature.
It's not written for the elite, though. Whether you thrive on politics and government, read the book. It makes the big financial and political issues understandable and interesting.
But above all, it restores one's faith in Albany's version of the democratic process. Warts and all, it's the system that makes our communal decisions for us. It can survive war, corruption, bad ideas and the passions of the moment. It can't survive an embedded cynicism about government itself, and the people who engage in the rough-and-tumble of decision-making.
Ravitch's great contribution is reminding us that good people can create good outcomes and better communities. Thanks.
The writer is a fellow at the Demos think tank in New York City and at the Wagner School at New York University.