Buffalo Billion trial has exposed Cuomo’s corruption

The Buffalo Billion case heads to the jury this week. Whatever the verdicts, the trial has further exposed the massive corruption of Gov. Cuomo’s economic-development apparatus — which continues to chug along without reform.

Howe himself didn’t testify, since he was a disaster in the last Cuomo-administration corruption trial: He got caught committing credit-card fraud while providing evidence against Joe Percoco, the gov’s longtime right-hand man — though Percoco was still found guilty on multiple charges.

But the simple fact is that Howe never had the power to rig those contracts: Kalayeros’ office, if not Kalayeros himself, had to do that.

And even if he escapes conviction, Kalayeros’ Cuomo-era record as economic genius is terrible: On top of the $750 million he sunk into the white-elephant SolarCity plant in Buffalo, he dumped $55 million into a dud IBM innovation center and $15 million into that failed film hub outside Syracuse. All this from the man Cuomo used to call New York’s “secret weapon.”

Bottom line: Andrew Cuomo set out to spend taxpayer billions in the name of economic development, outside the normal controls on state spending. Many of the contracts then went to enrich his donors in familiar “pay to play” fashion — and at least two of his closest associates took the opportunity to line their own pockets.

And when the feds moved in with indictments, Cuomo promised reforms that he then never took and stood in the way of other efforts to make sure it didn’t happen again.

He’s even still taking donations that he tacitly acknowledges carry the air (at least) of corruption. And the projects themselves have routinely failed to provide the jobs he’d promised.
We shudder to think what a third Cuomo term might bring.