Governor David Paterson tonight makes the most significant speech of his short tenure. He’s confronting a crisis in the state budget and will say the money’s very, very tight. His warning: hard times are coming, particularly for state employees.
He wants government agencies to take yet another hard look at their budgets, and cut. There’s enough money for this year’s budget, but come April, 2009, there’s a big problem. The ’09 deficit could be 6 billion, up from $5 billion. To cover the hole, he can order more cuts or raise taxes or both.
Paterson tried his message out in New York City yesterday, at a meeting of the city’s financial control board. He says city employees don’t get it.
Opinions, opinions, we got opinions:
The New York Post opines:
Notably, Paterson so far has given in to labor’s every demand almost without hesitation. And he let a blatantly over-stuffed budget pass in April.
Will he take a different tack now?
Or will it be just more scare talk?
Say the Daily News editorialists:
No more budgets that boost spending by triple the rate of inflation.
No more living under the delusion that boom times go on forever.
Instead, let’s have prudence.
Newsday’s political blog is less kind:
In the wake of his complaint earlier this month that he was being disrespected by being called the “accidental governor,” it’s hard to resist the suspicion that the primary motive for the speech is political image massage — to give Paterson a higher, more assertive, less “accidental” profile.
Elsewhere:
- There’s been no reform in Albany, and you can blame the guy who said he wanted to reform Albany.
- Protestors storm the Board of Regents.
- Voting machines may not be ready by mid-2009.
- A court says the state doesn’t have to force native nations to collect state sales tax.
- It could be a good harvest across much of Upstate NY.
- Blue Cross of Western NY will allow benefits to married gay couples.
And Finally:
- Gee, you mean a guy can’t just take off from work to cavort with a Swedish model and expect to have his job waiting for him when he’s done? What is this world coming to?
