Cuomo Sees More Attention on Domestic Issues

Gov. Mario M. Cuomo of New York, one of the Democratic Party’s most influential politicians, believes that the easing of international tensions will help turn the attention of Americans toward one of his favorite issues--the festering and long neglected domestic problems of the nation.

“As I wrote in my journal today,” the governor, who has published his diaries in the past, said in a recent hourlong interview at his offices in the World Trade Center, “ . . . as you worry less about war with Russia, you can afford now to look at the internal problems.”

The 57-year-old governor made it clear that he included drugs, crime, poverty, health, education and housing among these problems and that he believes that no Administration in Washington could cope with them without raising taxes.

Warns Against Shrillness

But he also warned fellow Democrats, especially liberal Democrats, not to sound too shrill in their recital of the nation’s ills and their call for solutions. “The people don’t need some dark-robed misanthrope to tell them how best to deal with these problems,” he said.

Cuomo insisted, as he has in the past, that he is not testing the waters to decide whether to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992. But, as often in the past, he still sounded “presidential,” even in denial.

This knack of undercutting his presidential denials with his presidential rhetoric threw many analysts off in the campaign for the 1988 nomination when he surprised them by keeping to his resolve and refusing to enter the race. Some speculated that he might have welcomed a draft at the 1988 Democratic convention in Atlanta, although nothing like that materialized.

But there is little doubt that Cuomo, who is expected to run for reelection as governor in 1990, likes the role of a prominent Democrat in the national spotlight influencing national policy. He is often on the move making speeches out of state. And it was a member of his staff, rather than The Times, that proposed this interview.

Cuomo is an animated talker in private, sometimes planting his feet on his desk, sometimes popping up to stand behind his leather chair and embrace it as he makes his points. He gesticulates often and likes to spice his comments with inoffensive ethnic jokes, Italian and Yiddish phrases, and striking metaphors.

He summed up his view of the Bush Administration, for example, by saying: “People who keep one foot in the boat and one foot on the dock always fall on their tush. That happens to all people who are eternally ambivalent.”

Cuomo also scoffed at President Bush’s proposals Thursday to establish a base on the moon and send an expedition to Mars. “I’m all for going to the moon, whatever it costs,” Cuomo said sarcastically, “as long as you can pay for the other things. If you can afford them both, God bless you.”

The New York governor said he has encountered little difficulty, in speechmaking around the country, persuading people that taxes must be increased to pay for the programs needed to deal with such problems as inadequate education and poverty. But Cuomo said he stresses that it is the rich, not the poor and the middle class, who must bear the burden of increased taxation. As examples, he mentioned a higher tax on yachts and an increase of a few points in the maximum tax on high incomes.

“Unfortunately, we live in the 24-second television world,” he said. “But if you have the time to tell the people the truth, you can sell revenue increases to people.

“But, these revenue increases must not be burdensome and must be spent wisely. You have to tell them how you plan to spend it. If you say it is for (fighting) drugs, 100% will be in favor of the revenue increase. For education, 90%. For housing, 50%. For a vague social agenda, zero.

“It’s a question of selling it.”

Cuomo said that, once the American people realize, out of self-interest and compassion, that the government must deal with a social problem, the leaders must then ask the people whether they want to pay for it.

“Do you want to do these things or don’t you?” he said, mimicking the challenge.

“Make up your mind, yes or no. The Soviets aren’t going to do it for you. God is not going to do it for you.”

Moreover, Cuomo implied that increased revenues would not be an issue by the time of the next presidential election, for he believes that Bush will have long since been forced to renege on his read-my-lips campaign pledge not to raise taxes.

“Put this down in your notebook three times,” he said. “Bush will increase taxes. Bush will increase taxes. Bush will increase taxes.”

Discussing the social problems of the country, Cuomo said that, although most of the impoverished people in America are white, “a large number of people see the problem as inflicted on us by blacks and Hispanics.”

The governor said it was necessary to make the case to people that blacks commit a high percentage of crime in this country not because they are black but because they are poor. He acknowledged, however, that there are problems in making the case. “If people really think that blacks are inferior in intelligence but jump higher,” he said, “then they are not educable.”

Nevertheless, Cuomo insisted that most people can be led to understand that “the economic underclass has changed, but they are always the poor people.” Invoking the name of a famous street in the heart of the old Italian neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York, Cuomo said: “Mulberry Street had a lot of good people, but a lot of Italians went to jail.”

Cuomo denied that his travels throughout the country smacked of a testing of the waters for a possible try for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination.

“I’m not testing the waters,” he said. “I’m raising money for my children.”

Cuomo said he accepts payments--known as honorariums--for about 15 speeches a year.

Despite his denials, Cuomo sounded very much like a candidate for national office when he boasted how well his ideas are received throughout the country, even in areas like the South that are usually regarded as hostile to a New York politician.

“Nowhere in the country do I have the success that I have in the South,” the governor said. “. . . Anyone who travels with me extensively would say that the things I say travel everywhere. I enjoy trying cases before the American jury.

“But,” he adds with a grin, “maybe if I said I was running for the presidency, they would treat me differently.”