In a meeting with attendees like Senators Schumer and Clinton, State Senate majority leader Joseph Bruno and Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, Representative Charles Rangel criticized Governor Eliot Spitzer. He said that Spitzer's aggressive handling of Medicaid and health-care-industry issues is only making the problem worse and isn't helpful - and that the governor's proposed cuts are too deep.
Rangel also asked that both the governor and Local 1199 union that represent hospital workers (Local 1199 boss Dennis Rivera was also in the meeting) stop the war of the ads. See one from the union here, see one from the governor here - it's a pretty dirty fight. Rangel said, "We cannot deliver the resources in the middle of a food fight. We just can't do it."
The NY Times reports "in an interview afterward, Mr. Rangel suggested that the governor had an anger problem." Ha! Rangel is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees Medicaid.
