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PLATTSBURGH — Potential candidate for governor Chris Collins believes the state needs to be run like a business.
Collins, the Erie County executive in Buffalo, told a crowd of 126 people at an Upstate New York Tea Party gathering Tuesday night that high taxes, unchecked spending and poor decisions have the state on a path to ruin.
"I am here, and you are here for your children and your grandchildren because we've robbed them of their future."
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Collins, 59, was elected Erie County executive in 2007 on a platform that he would run the county like a business.
He installed Lean Six Sigma, a business method to improve efficiency and eliminate waste and empower employees, to turn the county around.
Collins said he drives his own car, buys his own gas and uses his own cell phone.
He also took away cell phones and Blackberries and all unnecessary vehicles for county employees.
A businessman by trade, Collins has worked to save distressed companies. In the past 10 years, he has purchased and invested in about 20 distressed manufacturing companies and turned them into profitable ventures.
Those companies have around 600 employees, including about 500 in Western New York, with annual sales of about $80 million.
'GROW OR DIE'
Collins said New York's population has shrunk about 2 percent a year for the past 60 years as people leave to avoid high taxes and fees and strict regulations.
"Who has a business plan to shrink each year? You either grow or you die."
Collins said he believes in small government and low taxes and not entitlement programs that reward poor choices.
"It is a choice not to get a high-school diploma or a GED (General Education Department degree) or not to go to community college to better yourself.
"If you can't pass a drug test to keep a job or if you can't get up in the morning to go to work, those are choices. We should not have programs that reward that kind of behavior."
He pointed to a state program a few years ago that gave people $200 vouchers in hopes that they would use them to buy school supplies for their children.
"Best Buy had their best week ever," Collins said. "It is that kind of mind-set that has us on the brink of bankruptcy."
COMPETITION
Collins said he also believes in union contracts that are fair for both workers and taxpayers. New hires need to pay some of their health-insurance costs, he said, and paid time off needs to be looked at.
On education, Collins said he supports more charter schools and vouchers.
"Competition works. We need to go into these failed schools and shut them down."
When asked about Gov. David Paterson's proposal this week to close some state prisons, including Lyon Mountain Correctional Facility and the Moriah Shock Incarceration Facility in our region, Collins said, "We don't want expenses we don't need, but government has to consider the impact on a community when making decisions."
On social issues, Collins said he supports a women's right to choose abortion in the first trimester but is against partial-birth abortions. He opposes gay marriage and supports gun ownership.
CONTROVERSIES
Collins said he will probably make a decision whether he will run as a Republican in the next three weeks.
His campaign got off to a rocky start when he was criticized for referring to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver as Hitler and reportedly asking a woman to perform a lap dance at the governor's State of the State address in Albany two weeks ago.
Collins said he used a poor choice of words in describing Silver, but he does not apologize for his views on the speaker's performance.
"He's been bad for the state."
As for the lap-dance remark, Collins said the media has mischaracterized a private conversation, and it is being used as a political attack.
"I may have made a couple missteps, but I am up for the fight," he said.
E-mail Joe LoTemplio at: jlotemplio@pressrepublican.com
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