Governor David Paterson is looking to possibly return the State Legislature for another special session, presumably to take a bite out of the budget.
The state is faced with a round of job losses as a result of happenings on Wall St and the result of the job losses could mean loss of state revenue in the millions maybe even $1 billion. The loss of revenue will reopen and widen the deficit for this fiscal year.
This poses a problem for the incumbent lawmakers, on one hand they have the issue of fiscal responsibility for the state taxpayers and they do not want to be viewed as inactive, on the other hand, this will require tough decisions prior to their re-election, which puts them into an unsettling position of more budget cuts and grappling with more bad news for their districts while they are running.
But, dealing with the disgruntled constituents is their problem, they supported this budget by voting for it and they need to be held accountable.
In an interesting twist, Democrats want to increase spending by pushing the home heating assistance even higher than that proposed by the Governor.
Democrats have had a desire to raise taxes to address the fiscal issues facing the state, but that is not the answer and would be a disastrous move considering the downturn on Wall St.
Give the Governor credit where credit is due, he saw this coming during budget negotiations in the spring. This should be a lesson moving forward, they are borrowing and spending beyond the means of the taxpayers in this state and it is disruptive to the taxpayers and the agencies serving the taxpayers.
This should have been planned and prepared for during the budget, When the finances of the state are so thin they are unable to weather situations like this, then incumbent lawmakers are not being fiscally responsible.
3 comments:
I strongly agree with your opinion. Kudos for Gov. Paterson for trying to be a fiscal conservative Democrat, or at least a fiscal realist. New York State's economy is in bad shape and it's about time that they trimed the fat from the state budget. It should be the top priority of all legisltors to be fiscally conservative and to invest the public's money where the greatest social and economis return is. It is customary during an election year for incumbent legislators to not only bring home the bacon, but the sausage and ham hocks to help ensure their re-election. Shame on those legisltors who commit such blatant robbery of the state treasury this year. We have a long road ahead of us before the state recovers from the financial debacles on Wall St. and the loss of industry around the state. The time is now to elect leaders that are fiscal conservatives who can design a reasonable budget and stick to it.
I say we should do what Shelly Silver says to do. We should sit back and wait. There's no telling what will happen. Money might fall from the sky. After all, it is George Bush's fault that we taxed and spent like we did.
In other words, there are enough people making money by ignoring reality to make this go on a weeee bit longer. It hasn't gotten bad enough, yet. Long live the greatest thug of our generation, Shelly Silver. But we love him so.
Wait a minute. Why is anyone surprised that Albany is facing doomsday once again? After years of overtaxing and overspending, Paterson and the Dems want us to believe that our fiscal crisis is something that just happened, like that? It takes work, people, to screw something up this badly.
Let's change Albany once and for all by changing the people we send there!
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