Thursday, August 28, 2008
governor David Paterson’s budget cuts impact Midtowners
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
David Paterson the accidental Governor, Eliot Spider’s running mate, chosen for “balance of power,” has turned into a major problem solver for the ailing New York State. With a recession and an energy crisis on hand, he called a special session of the NYS legislature on August 19, to make a $600 million spending cut in the current budget,.
The problems date back to the Pataki years, when his reductions of income tax, caused several surges in the below-radar property and school tax rates... NYS homeowners have been suffering ever since, with some current attempts to reduce the rate, nagging from 4 to 6% and with recommended reforms to provide special relief for those New Yorkers whose property tax exceeds 25% of income. This points up the fact that the former Empire State, gateway to the West, rich in railroads, steel and manufacturing, has been steadily going downhill. This is not evident to us cityites, citizens of the financial capital of the world, seemingly impervious to the woes of our agricultural regions of our state, but the upstate population is getting older and poorer. Buffalo and other cities are shrinking and decaying, and the young are leaving for better futures out west and south, leaving behind the aging and disabled parents and the poor, who survive because they own their inherited homes. The upstaters are used to living poor, and growing poorer is not that much harder, as I was told by a sarcastic rural client of an upstate .Wendy’s, popular with chubby clients and their children having French fries and cokes, the menu of the food-stamp people. It is painful to see.
Paterson has unilaterally cut state agency budgets by $630M, looking for a 6% reduction in costs across the board. His strategy is reminiscent of the days whim Bill Clinton was accused of hijacking the GOP program by installing welfare cuts. The Governor partly succeeded in the Legislature: the two houses approved a $427M current cut, with an objective of a total $1,7B in the current two years, and $2.35B in 2010/11, affecting the $122B overall budget, which is facing a $20B projected deficit over four years, due to the recession. The 20% of state revenue from Wall Street is expected to drop severely.
The NYS Republicans support the program, whose major opponents are the state trade unions, teachers, municipal workers and social service workers, attacking Paterson’s strategy of depending solely on service and program cutting, leaving revenue-raising options off the table. The cuts will be in Medicaid (biggest, $127M plus matching Fed monies), child care, food programs, HIV/AIDS and mental health services, support for the disabled and legal assistance for the poor, as identified by the analysts of the Empire Justice Center, who propose that a small increase in the taxes of the top earners, people with annual incomes of half a million dollars plus, the top 1% of the population, be implemented as a cure, rather than left as a last resort. The Center people say that, according to data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, thus 1% of population earns more than twice the income of the bottom 50%... It was such a modest temporary increase in taxation of the millionaires that helped the state in getting out of the fiscal doldrums in 2003, during the tax-cutter Pataki’s reign, and it did not cause an exodus of the rich from the state...
This Millionaires’ Tax proposal has been passed by the Assembly, but continues to be opposed by the Senate and the Governor, To the latter point, it is rumored that Paterson, who as Minority Leader of the Senate was a constant thorn in Joe Bruno’s side, had formed an understanding with the former Majority Leader and his successor, Dean Skelos. It is said that Malcolm Smith, Paterson’s successor in the Senate and now potentially one of the three state powerful men, should Democrats win the Senate, is not to the Governor’s liking, and may be a possible competitor in the 2010 Gubernatorial race. Some offers to Democratic state senators to join the Governor’s administration might be construed to have the intent of keeping the Senate leadership in GOP hands, per Alan Chartock, the political observer who also heads the WAMC Northeast Public Radio network.
As for the latter race, there is also Tom Golisano, three-time candidate of the Independence Party, who now is contributing to the DNCC and to campaigns of tax reform candidates for the Legislature, building a basis for his own run. The main opponent for Paterson in 2010 will be Michael Bloomberg, a fiscal Conservative. If Paterson proves himself to be of a like bent, he may attract enough upstate Republican votes to win the governorship on his own. We Midtown Manhattanites, solidly entrenched in the Democratic Party, sometimes forget how firmly some of the poorer counties of upstate remain in the Republican column. As noted in a mid-year Siena survey, Paterson would lose heavily if Bloomberg were to run.
David Paterson the accidental Governor, Eliot Spider’s running mate, chosen for “balance of power,” has turned into a major problem solver for the ailing New York State. With a recession and an energy crisis on hand, he called a special session of the NYS legislature on August 19, to make a $600 million spending cut in the current budget,.
The problems date back to the Pataki years, when his reductions of income tax, caused several surges in the below-radar property and school tax rates... NYS homeowners have been suffering ever since, with some current attempts to reduce the rate, nagging from 4 to 6% and with recommended reforms to provide special relief for those New Yorkers whose property tax exceeds 25% of income. This points up the fact that the former Empire State, gateway to the West, rich in railroads, steel and manufacturing, has been steadily going downhill. This is not evident to us cityites, citizens of the financial capital of the world, seemingly impervious to the woes of our agricultural regions of our state, but the upstate population is getting older and poorer. Buffalo and other cities are shrinking and decaying, and the young are leaving for better futures out west and south, leaving behind the aging and disabled parents and the poor, who survive because they own their inherited homes. The upstaters are used to living poor, and growing poorer is not that much harder, as I was told by a sarcastic rural client of an upstate .Wendy’s, popular with chubby clients and their children having French fries and cokes, the menu of the food-stamp people. It is painful to see.
Paterson has unilaterally cut state agency budgets by $630M, looking for a 6% reduction in costs across the board. His strategy is reminiscent of the days whim Bill Clinton was accused of hijacking the GOP program by installing welfare cuts. The Governor partly succeeded in the Legislature: the two houses approved a $427M current cut, with an objective of a total $1,7B in the current two years, and $2.35B in 2010/11, affecting the $122B overall budget, which is facing a $20B projected deficit over four years, due to the recession. The 20% of state revenue from Wall Street is expected to drop severely.
The NYS Republicans support the program, whose major opponents are the state trade unions, teachers, municipal workers and social service workers, attacking Paterson’s strategy of depending solely on service and program cutting, leaving revenue-raising options off the table. The cuts will be in Medicaid (biggest, $127M plus matching Fed monies), child care, food programs, HIV/AIDS and mental health services, support for the disabled and legal assistance for the poor, as identified by the analysts of the Empire Justice Center, who propose that a small increase in the taxes of the top earners, people with annual incomes of half a million dollars plus, the top 1% of the population, be implemented as a cure, rather than left as a last resort. The Center people say that, according to data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, thus 1% of population earns more than twice the income of the bottom 50%... It was such a modest temporary increase in taxation of the millionaires that helped the state in getting out of the fiscal doldrums in 2003, during the tax-cutter Pataki’s reign, and it did not cause an exodus of the rich from the state...
This Millionaires’ Tax proposal has been passed by the Assembly, but continues to be opposed by the Senate and the Governor, To the latter point, it is rumored that Paterson, who as Minority Leader of the Senate was a constant thorn in Joe Bruno’s side, had formed an understanding with the former Majority Leader and his successor, Dean Skelos. It is said that Malcolm Smith, Paterson’s successor in the Senate and now potentially one of the three state powerful men, should Democrats win the Senate, is not to the Governor’s liking, and may be a possible competitor in the 2010 Gubernatorial race. Some offers to Democratic state senators to join the Governor’s administration might be construed to have the intent of keeping the Senate leadership in GOP hands, per Alan Chartock, the political observer who also heads the WAMC Northeast Public Radio network.
As for the latter race, there is also Tom Golisano, three-time candidate of the Independence Party, who now is contributing to the DNCC and to campaigns of tax reform candidates for the Legislature, building a basis for his own run. The main opponent for Paterson in 2010 will be Michael Bloomberg, a fiscal Conservative. If Paterson proves himself to be of a like bent, he may attract enough upstate Republican votes to win the governorship on his own. We Midtown Manhattanites, solidly entrenched in the Democratic Party, sometimes forget how firmly some of the poorer counties of upstate remain in the Republican column. As noted in a mid-year Siena survey, Paterson would lose heavily if Bloomberg were to run.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 7:22 PM 
