The budget and its process continue into its second week of spinning out of control.E.J. McMahon, an intelligent analyst of the New York State Budget and Director of the Empire Center writes an interesting op-ed piece in today's edition of the NY Post.
Here are some highlights of his analysis along with further comments.
Lawmakers have violated a provision of the budget reform law from 2007 by voting on pieces of the budget prior to a finalized balanced budget plan. The provision of that law requires a comprehensive cumulative report of the changes in the budget from the Governor's proposed budget.
The lawmakers are filling the revenue gap with plenty of tricks, including borrowing $250 million for a racino construction project at Aqueduct, yet making the operator front the money, providing the state with money to fund other spending and driving the taxpayer further into debt.
The piece aptly points out New York State government is spending faster than the growth of personal income and the rate of inflation.
As remarked on this blog previously, it is believed lawmakers will be back this year, after the elections of course, to cut spending when revenues fail to meet projections. McMahon points out if they do not fix it this year, then the following year's budget gap will be larger, possibly $5 million or more.
He advises taxpayers to hold onto their wallets, smart advice.
Watch for Comptroller DiNapoli, a former Assemblyman, to sign off on the budget, but pay close attention to his remarks in doing so, this will signal the strength, or lack there of, on this budget.
1 comment:
Forget about the State Budget, what about the city of Watertown. The get out from under the airport that should save about 4ooK a year and dispatch services which was said to save another 200k a year and they have already blown the savings.
We now are faced with a levy increase. They blame it on sales tax, but the real culprit is SPENDING out of control and huge raises for the City MAnager.
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