Posted on 07/10/2009 7:31:49 PM PDT by neverdem
David Paterson took the oath as governor of New York on March 17, 2008, succeeding the disgraced Eliot Spitzer on the same day that Bear Stearns collapsed. Paterson spent the spring and summer warning that the state faced its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, and by early autumn, he was looking downright prophetic. As tax revenues nose-dived and New York’s budget deficit ballooned from $4 billion to over $13 billion, the new governor didn’t simply blame the problem on economic forces beyond his control. “This is the result of our increased spending over years and years,” he said during one of many fiscal-crisis news conferences. Wall Street had “bailed us out for a number of years,” he added, but “the well has run dry.”
Paterson’s tough talk implied that he would do what was necessary for New York to weather the recession and recover from it: in the short term, slash state spending to close budget gaps; for the longer term, reduce New York’s bloated public sector to a more affordable size; and, above all, avoid raising economy-killing taxes. Unfortunately, he has failed on all three counts, agreeing this past March to a 2009–10 state budget that will keep growing even as the economy shrinks. New York’s finances now precariously balance on a combination of temporary federal aid, nonrecurring “one-shot” savings and revenues, and a package of record tax and fee increases. As a result, the Empire State’s fiscal and economic outlook is worse than at any time since the fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s.
At the close of his budget negotiations with the New York State Legislature, Paterson bizarrely insisted that the new spending plan represented fiscal austerity: “If the legislature can maintain this type of discipline over the next few years, then we can actually...
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
Awww they have to be responsible poor politicians.
Just heard PA gov Rendell arguing benefit of stimulus money to PA has been to prevent layoffs of thousands of state, county and municipal employees. So his argument is, it may be ok for businesses to shrink in a recession, but not the government. State and county officials continually show that their true constituency is not the people that elected them, but the government employees.
Whoa! What caused this burst of honesty?!
FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.
yeah, right...
Thanks for the ping!
Well, you have heard that expression about "blind squirrels", haven't you?
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