By Michael Barbaro

Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, buys his bagels at H&H, his groceries at Fairway and his coffee at Lenny’s (Starbucks is, after all, a Seattle company). He roots for the Jets, exercises in Riverside Park and pops into the Museum of Natural History.

Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times

The idea of doing anything outside New York City seems alien to him.

“I can’t imagine not being in this city,” he said over coffee.

But after five decades of municipal fidelity, Mr. Stringer is refusing to do something rather momentous in the city of his birth: marry.

He and his fiancée, Elyse Buxbaum, have decided to wed in Connecticut this year in what they described as a protest of New York’s failure to legalize gay marriage.

In the half year since the New York State Senate defeated a bill to allow same-sex marriage, a parade of politicians have proclaimed their anger at the inability of gay couples to marry in the state.

But Mr. Stringer, a potential candidate for mayor in 2013, may be the first to boycott New York’s marriage bureau — an act that he hopes will encourage his constituents (and fellow lawmakers) to get married in states like Connecticut, Vermont and Massachusetts that have sanctioned gay marriage.

“This gives Elyse and I a chance to take personal responsibility,” Mr. Stringer, 50, said at a coffee shop on the Upper East Side as Ms. Buxbaum, 38, sat next to him.

“If enough people who have somewhat of a profile — not just politicians, but artists and business leaders — start going into Massachusetts or Connecticut and show New York how embarrassing it is that you can’t get a marriage license for same-sex couples, then we will change things.”

The couple said they did not set out to make a statement.

They met about five years ago, shortly after Mr. Stringer’s 2005 election as borough president, when she visited his office to introduce herself and the Jewish Museum, where she is director of corporate and government relations.

They dated, on and off, in the past two years (“We never lasted in the summer,” Ms. Buxbaum said playfully). At the beginning of 2010, their relationship became serious, and Mr. Stringer proposed.

“I love a campaign,” Mr. Stringer said of his courtship.

“And, as always, he won,” Ms. Buxbaum retorted.

They briefly considered dashing down to the city clerk’s office for a quick, no-fuss wedding, the first wedding for each of them. Fearing parental reactions, however, they abandoned the idea, in favor of a traditional Jewish ceremony. But then Ms. Buxbaum started to tell her gay friends and colleagues about her impending nuptials.

“I started to feel terrible,” she said. “I was sharing something that not everybody could have.”

Breaking the news to a longtime friend who is a lesbian proved especially painful.

“She and I both went to the same college, the same graduate school, we both work in museums, and are both in long-term, loving relationships,” Ms. Buxbaum said, “and I could not figure out why my love for Scott was more worthy than her love for her partner. It just wasn’t right.”

She sat Mr. Stringer down and told him about her frustration, which he shared. “What do we do about it?” she said.

Mr. Stringer relayed their unhappiness to his longtime friend Allen Roskoff, a gay activist, who told him the solution was obvious: leave New York.

“You can do something about it,” Mr. Roskoff recalled telling Mr. Stringer. “Make a statement. Get a marriage license in a state that has marriage equality.”

Ms. Buxbaum said, “It was brilliant.” Her only concern was whether Mr. Stringer, as Manhattan’s borough president — and, more or less, a paid cheerleader for the city — could really leave New York for his wedding. “Would it look …,” Ms. Buxbaum said, trailing off.

Mr. Stringer jumped in. “We both agreed it was the right thing to do.”

“To the degree that you have a public platform, this is a very good way to use it,” he said.

Ms. Buxbaum researched their options. They settled on obtaining a marriage license in Connecticut, where they will hold a civil ceremony, with both sets of parents present. Back in New York, a rabbi will perform a religious service for about 200 family members and friends a few days later, on Sept. 5.

No agency appears to keep statistics on how many heterosexual couples shun New York to protest the lack of same-sex marriages here. While Mr. Stringer said he was not doing so for political gain, it could raise his standing among gay and lesbian voters, a significant constituency in the city.

Mr. Roskoff called the out-of-state wedding “a major statement that advances the cause.”

“It shows conviction,” he said.

Mr. Stringer is not new to the marriage debate. As a member of the State Assembly, he helped introduce the state’s first bill to legalize same-sex marriage in the 1990s. But even as he acknowledged the political symbolism of his wedding, he said it was really a question of conscience.

“I don’t view this as a politically courageous act,” Mr. Stringer said. “This is something we are going to do personally that we will have with us for the rest of our lives.”

Threats have been made against her, a sitting GOP chairman has targeted her for political destruction, and she’s challenging an incumbent that has been in office since the days of Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

But that hasn’t stopped Lucretia Regina-Potter from fighting back.

Now, in two recent web posts, the 49th AD candidate has been slamming Democratic dinosaur Peter Abbate for his unholy alliances with unions and sourcing media articles that have been critical of him.

This is the first of her posts from her website:

A recent article published in the Bay News/ Bay Ridge Courier entitled: “Our Official Field Guide To Defeating Incumbents”, listsPeter Abbate as the  Number One Incumbent to Beat.  The article states the obvious and what many constituents of the 49th Assembly District have experienced for the past several years. He has severely neglected his district.  Abatte  has a burgeoning war chest. The bulk of these funds consist of contributions from unions and special interest groups, thus making Abbate beholden to theminstead of the hard-working families of the 49th AD.

It is interesting to note that during the last financial disclosure report of January 2010, Abbate received a whopping fourdonations from individuals, with only two of those four actually from the 49th AD! He is completely apathetic to the needs of the immediate community and the people are well aware of it.

The article also points out that Abbate has been in office 24 years,almost a quarter of a century with the same elected official remaining in the same office! He is the poster boy for term limits.The President of the United States of American is not permitted to remain in office for more than eight years, what justifies Abbate remaining in office for so long? It is definitely not his hard work or his dedication to the betterment of the 49th AD. Instead, Abbate feels that he is entitled to be the Assemblyman.

Mr Abbate has forgotten that he is a public servant.

Mr Abbate has neglected the good, hard-working. well-deserving people of the beautiful 49th Assembly District.

Mr Abbate, the people of the 49th Assembly District have a very important message to send you on November 2, 2010…..

GOODBYE AND GOOD RIDDANCE!

***

We also noted a story from the City Room of The New York Times, which Mrs. Regina-Potter put onto her site:

A Bigger Pension Borrowing Plan

By DANNY HAKIM

ALBANY — The state’s plan to borrow from the pension fund is potentially growing by billions of dollars.

About two weeks ago, Gov. David A. Paterson and lawmakers reached a tentative agreement to allow the state and municipalities to borrow $6 billion from the state pension fund over the next three years. Now the Legislature, acting on its own, has scrapped that in favor of a more aggressive plan that would allow for borrowing from the pension fund in perpetuity. Each plan would help balance the budget this year.

The new plan, which would allow borrowing in the tens of billions of dollars over time, closely matches one proposed by Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli. Mr. DiNapoli, however, has cooled to the whole idea in recent weeks after it was criticized by budget watchdogs, and Harry Wilson, a Republican challenging his re-election.

The comptroller’s office said in a statement: “The ability for local governments particularly to deal with volatility and spikes in pension fund contribution has become increasingly difficult.

“Comptroller DiNapoli’s plan would give local governments an option, just like with a homeowner’s home utility bill, to do balanced billing.”

The pension plan is included in the Legislature’s revenue bill — the portion of the budget in which new taxes, fees and other revenue-raising initiatives are laid out — and is expected to be taken up and passed by both houses on Tuesday. However, the bill would need Mr. Paterson’s signature.

The idea behind the plan is that it would allow the state and local governments outside of New York City to essentially borrow money from the pension fund to pay a portion of their required annual contributions to the pension fund.

This budgetary sleight of hand has been decried by fiscal conservatives.

“What you’re really saying is you don’t want people to see what these benefits really cost, because if you did, there would be pressure to reduce and reform them,” said Edmund J. McMahon, director of theEmpire Center for New York State Policy, a conservative-leaning research group.

“It’s basically the equivalent of rolling over debt in perpetuity, if the markets don’t cooperate with a return to double-digit annual returns,” he added.The plan would also force those governments that opt in to contribute more money to the system during bull markets; the money would then be set aside in a reserve fund to help during bear markets.

Assemblyman Peter J. Abbate Jr., the chairman of the Assembly’s Labor Committee, defended the measure.“The pension system is going to be fine if the market does fine,” Mr. Abbate said, adding, “The reason to do this is to help counties and the state out — not to enhance pensions, not to borrow to balance the budget. The main purpose of the legislation is to smooth out the amount people have to pay.”

***

Peter Abbate has come to represent what the problem is in Albany. He is hardly independent, sells out to special interests groups and is apparently oblivious to where our state is right now.

No one believes the “pension system is going to be fine.” Indeed, when I read that line, I began to wonder if either he or I had fallen down the rabbit hole.

Lewis Carroll, eat your heart out. How clueless is this man?

Peter Abbate is a relic of old New York politics, the product of a Democratic machine that idolizes politicians for their ethnicity above their duty to their constituents. Mr. Abbate has no major accomplishments that we can think of, and as for legislation tied to him, it seems like the man is a mystery.

At least with The Golden Prince (aka Marty Golden) you know when he takes up an issue as his own (however incompetent as he may do so) or when he flees the room from addressing an issue. I’ll give him that.

And the media gives Golden a high level of scrutiny.

But Abbate seems to get in just under the radar on so many of the things he does. He cuddles up with unions, makes deals with Republicans to maintain a stranglehold on elections, and has used questionable campaign tactics for years.

The voters must bring him to justice.

New Yorkers seeking change in government and reform in Albany look forward to his political demise.

Because that will mean this November was a success.

Republicans on the Federal level have rarely actually minimized the role of the Federal government. For example, Herbert Hoover adopted highly socialist policies after the First Great Depression in 1929. President Eisenhower called himself a “social conservative” and a “liberal politician” during his campaign for the Presidency in 1952. President Richard Nixon took the United States completely off the gold standard during his administration, inevitably giving the Federal Reserve more power over inflating currency and distributing wealth around the US, yet another example of Republicans straying away from principle and increasing the size and role of the Federal Government. The Bush administration, needless to say, has increased taxes to pay for two overseas wars and proposed the enacted “Patriot Act” which allows the Federal Government to tap into the private lives of citizens.

The misleading guidance of the Republican Party applies locally as well.  A small group of local Republican leaders organized a “Rally Against Socialized Healthcare” on Sunday, November 15, 2009. Two things were done wrong on behalf of these officials. Primarily, the party never reached out to the Brooklyn Young Republicans for this rally. One would think that with failing elections, the youth of the party would be ideal for the future of the party. Nevertheless, I grant you the leadership of the Republican Party. But I digress. The second most important fault on behalf of these officials was their misleading banner. What passed in the House of Representatives was nothing near a “Socialized Healthcare” system. Any educated voter can tell the difference between a socialized healthcare system and nationalized insurance, or the Public Option. There are fundamental political differences in these policies and our very own elected officials are too blind to see the difference.

Ludwig Von Mises, the infamous free market economist, once stated that “the flowering of human society depends on two factors; the intellectual power of outstanding men to conceive sound, social and economic theories and the ability of these or other men to make these ideologies palatable to the majority.” Essentially, what Mises was offering was a simple paradox of the basics of democracy and republican government. In order for a voting system to work, the voters must be educated. But instead of educating the public, Brooklyn Republicans are not only jumping to conclusions, but are also rallying the same ignorant politics we have seen for decades under faulty Republican leadership. Let’s review the difference between Socialized Medicine and Obama’s Public Option.

There are several different healthcare models proposed by theorists and liberal governments around the world. In other words, “Socialized Healthcare” is too broad a term to rally a group against if we don’t even exactly know what role the government is playing in the healthcare system. One popular model used in our globalized world is the “Single-Payer” method; this is a real socialized healthcare system. Why? Because under this model, the government pools in money, usually through taxes, and then redistributes this money evenly to all health facilities in the country. We must understand that this system requires complete government control of all health-related facilities and personnel in order for this system to work. The United States is among some very few countries that do not have this form of healthcare. Another healthcare model is the “Fee-for-Service” method. In this model, individual practitioners and governments regulate prices and offer reimbursements. There are others, but at least you can see that there is a difference between government control of health and government paying for health. I’ll discuss the United States’ model later on.

What is important to understand when reviewing these models is that any socialized method requires government control or regulation of actual health facilities and doctors. Doctors receive a government paycheck, their hours are federally regulated, and government controls all aspects of the hospital equipment. President Obama’s “Public Option” in no way seizes control of any work hours or health facilities. It’s simply an insurance plan that the poor can opt into to pay for healthcare. Granted that this is a socialist move, this policy is still not Socialized Healthcare by nature nor by definition.

I can rant about the drawbacks of a “Public Option” for days, but this isn’t the debate here at the table. Instead, what we are seeing is our public officials misleading voters into thinking that the United States is falling under a “Socialized Healthcare” model. I wish these officials knew which model they were talking about because if they knew any better, their banner would read “Rally Against the Public Option.” In the United States we have had government paid for minimal healthcare since the 1960’s when Lyndon B. Johnson created, under his “Great Society,” Medicare and Medicaid to pay for healthcare for the poor and elderly. Nevertheless, even today, 65% of those insured in this country, pay into a “Private Healthcare” Model. This means that private insurance companies still play a vital role in paying for healthcare. No matter what the government is paying for, however, the government is still not controlling the way doctors do their jobs. This is important because it distinguished between a Socialized Healthcare model and a Public Option.

In countries like England, government practices true socialized healthcare because, for example, a government nurse inspects health in every home; this is mandatory government control over individual health. We obviously do not have this in the United States and our politicians are obviously misleading us. Republicans in this country need to stop focusing on the wrong issues. They need to stop harping over the notion that we are socializing healthcare when we are in fact socializing the paying methods. The less we and our legislators are educated about issues like this, the less of a chance we will gain any form of legitimacy in this country and in Congress. The sad part is, many Republicans are still electing or re-electing these misinformed tools of the system and then asking, “What are we doing wrong?” “Why is government still expanding?”

Government will stop expanding and infringing on our personal liberties when people–especially Republican leaders–realize that there are differences in certain policy. Their “cause” would be worth rallying for in countries like France or England where they actually have a Socialized Model. Their “cause” would also be worth fighting for if their local congressman, Michael McMahon, actually voted for the Public Option; but, he didn’t.

Personally, I don’t know what these politicians are doing, establishing a “rally” for something doesn’t really exist. I wish they cracked open a book or stopped watching Fox News all the time because they’re making our party look bad. I feel that true advocates of small government need a different voice in Brooklyn–true advocates who know what they are protesting.

Roy Antoun is County Committeeman in the 46th Assembly District of Brooklyn, New York. He welcomes feedback at roymantoun@gmail.com