NYS Governor Cuomo's Massive Power Grab

It's not just Cuomo's bullying against NYC teachers with his evaluation program:

The New York Times February 19, 2012 that New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has engaged in far-reaching power grabs:
Cuomo’s Efforts to Expand Authority Raise Alarm in Albany"

ALBANY — In his proposed budget for next year, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has inserted language that would allow him to move money between state agencies without legislative approval.

He has included a clause that would allow him to give out some contracts without the customary review of the state comptroller. And he added another provision that some budget experts fear could expand his authority to borrow money for construction projects.

Riding high after a string of successes during his first year in office, Mr. Cuomo is now taking an expansive, and expanding, view of the role of governor, in the name of reining in the state’s sprawling bureaucracy.

But even some of Mr. Cuomo’s fellow Democrats are raising questions about what they view as a power grab. And suddenly a staple of civics class — the notion of checks and balances between different branches of government — is the talk of the Capitol.

“I think many of us, including myself, feel that there is overreaching proceeding down the path by our new governor, and that it is ultimately not healthy for there to be excessive power in the executive branch, even though he’s popular,” said Assemblyman James F. Brennan, a Democrat of Brooklyn.

Within the last two weeks, the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, and the Senate majority leader, Dean G. Skelos, a Republican, both criticized Mr. Cuomo’s administration for a pact that allowed the state inspector general to see the tax returns of state employees. The state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, a Democrat, offered a broader critique, raising questions about proposals that his office said “would give the executive greater powers that would reduce long-established checks and balances.”

Read more: Cuomo’s Efforts to Expand Authority Raise Alarm in Albany.

"I am the government"
And don't forget his Louis XIV-like pronouncement last fall, "I am the government."