Netanyahu “Stuck in the Past”? What about Senator Schumer Himself?

Plus, how NPR lost its way

New York City, and New York state, have faced challenges during Charles Schumer’s quarter-century in the Senate.

“The Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past,” the Senate majority leader, Charles Schumer, said the other day in a mid-war insult aimed at the elected prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Schumer’s speech denounced Netanyahu as a “major obstacle to peace” and called for an early election in Israel. The Democrat from New York doubled down on it in a front-page interview with the New York Times, which then became the basis for an episode of the Times podcast The Daily.

It got us thinking. If Netanyahu, 74, is “stuck in the past,” after 16 years as prime minister of Israel, what does that make Schumer, 73, who was originally elected to Congress in 1980 and who has been a senator since January 1999?

And since Schumer has such a critical public view of Netanyahu’s leadership, maybe it’s worth taking a rigorous look at what has happened to New York during the 25 years in which Schumer has been senator?

When Schumer entered the Senate, New York had 33 electoral votes, second only to California’s. In the 2000 presidential election, New York had more electoral votes than Florida, which had 25, or Texas, which had 32.

In the 2024 election, New York will have only 28 electoral votes. That is fewer than Florida, which is up to 30, or Texas, which is up to 40. Both Florida and Texas have surpassed New York in population.

New York’s diminished electoral votes reflect the Empire State’s losses of congressional districts after censuses documenting many New Yorkers choosing to abandon the state for other places with lower costs, less corruption, and more freedom and opportunity.

The economic growth numbers tell a story similar to the population trends. In 1999 New York’s gross domestic product was $718 billion, Texas’s, $667 billion, Florida’s $422 billion. For 2023, New York’s GDP was $2.15 trillion, Texas’s $2.56 trillion, and Florida’s $1.58 trillion. Texas is now a bigger economy than New York, and Florida’s economy has been growing more rapidly than the Empire State’s.

Outcomes in the New York schools also have lagged during Schumer’s Senate service. The state’s 4^th grade math scores on a key national standardized test in 2022 were eight points below the national public average, while in 2000 they were at the average. Same with reading—when the test was given in 1998 and 2002 New Yorkers scored above the national average; in 2022, New York 4^th graders did worse than average on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test.

Life expectancy at birth for a New Yorker in 2000 was 77.9 years; by 2020 it had shortened to 77.7 years, notwithstanding declines in tobacco consumption, the rollout of ObamaCare, and various scientific advances in health and medicine.

Of the post-Pataki governors of New York, Eliot Spitzer resigned in 2008 amid a prostitution scandal; David Paterson withdrew his candidacy amid what the New York Times described as “an uproar over his administration’s intervention in a domestic violence case involving a close aide,” and Andrew Cuomo resigned in a sexual harassment scandal.

In New York City, the homeless population quadrupled to 100,000 in 2023 from 25,000 in 2000. Many of those in homeless shelters were migrants who arrived from other countries. The city’s jail at Rikers Island is so violent and dangerous that the federal government has asked a judge to appoint a receiver.

Of the ten cities in the country with the highest child poverty rates, three of them—Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo—are in New York. In 1999, 20.2 percent of New York families with children under 5 years old were below the poverty level; by 2022 that had soared to 30.7 percent.

Senator Schumer can blame Republicans in Washington for New York’s problems. He can say he’s not the governor or the state Democratic Party chair. Yet for a quarter century he’s been among the most prominent politicians in the state. New York’s relative decline in power and population has happened on his watch, the result of tax-and-spend-and-regulate policies that he promotes.

All this is not to trash New York, where I lived between 1998 and 2013. I have a lot of friends and family who remain there. It’s a fine place to visit. Yet it has some leadership issues of its own.

Schumer appointed himself to the job of judging Israel’s prime minister. Maybe instead, the senator would have been better off displaying a little uncharacteristic humility and directing his own attention to the obstacles a little closer to home.

How NPR lost its way: At the Free Press, an editor at National Public Radio, Uri Berliner, writes about the lack of viewpoint diversity at the news organization’s staff and a shift in its audience.

Back in 2011, “Twenty-six percent of listeners described themselves as conservative, 23 percent as middle of the road, and 37 percent as liberal.”

“By 2023, the picture was completely different,” he writes. “Only 11 percent described themselves as very or somewhat conservative, 21 percent as middle of the road, and 67 percent of listeners said they were very or somewhat liberal. We weren’t just losing conservatives; we were also losing moderates and traditional liberals.”

“In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans. None,” he writes.

Here in Boston, at WBUR, an NPR affiliate based at Boston University,  “the station's underwriting, or on-air sponsorship revenue, has dropped $7 million in the past five years, a decline of more than 40%,” the station says.

Berliner writes that Congress yanking NPR’s funding “isn’t the answer.” On that one, mark me down as not convinced.

Thank you!: Here at The Editors we pay the bills not with taxpayer dollars but thanks to paying readers like you. If you like what we are doing but have not yet become a paid subscriber, please do.

And if you are so moved, share this with a friend and help us to spread the word about The Editors.