Good thing New York is run by
Democrats. If this was a GOP-run state and they proposed such service cuts they'd be accused of hating children and wanting to throw old people out in the streets, left to eat cat food.
Shrieks echoed through the Capitol yesterday as Gov. Cuomo unleashed a $133 billion hack-and-slash spending plan that would subject schools, hospitals and the state workforce to some of the deepest cuts in recent memory and spare virtually no aspect of state government.
The governor's hard-times budget proposal would close a projected $10 billion gap with nearly $9 billion in cuts and no new borrowing or broad-based tax hikes. Cuts included $2.9 billion each in projected spending from Medicaid and local school aid -- among the largest on record.
"New York state is functionally bankrupt," Cuomo warned in his budget presentation to lawmakers, who will face pressure by special-interest groups to resist the cuts. "In a down economy, this is a death spiral," he said.
Cuomo ordered a 10 percent across-the-board spending cut to state agencies and threatened as many as 9,800 layoffs if public-employee unions reject a call for $450 million in annual concessions and givebacks.
Only in New York could a
$133 billion budget be considered draconian.
Cuomo has suggested he would be willing to shut down state government if lawmakers fail to approve a spending plan by the April 1 start of the new fiscal year.
From colleges to libraries to prisons, few corners of state government would be left unscathed:
* The city stood to get $660 million less than last year in aid, including a $578 million reduction in school payments. However, Mayor Bloomberg -- factoring in the same assumed spending hike Cuomo criticized -- said the actual impact would be more like $2 billion.
Well, look at the upside. That probably means a lot fewer
out-of-state gun stings to be run by Bloomberg.
Many of us who didn't vote for Mr. Cuomo are applauding him for getting out there with the truth and calling for these 'cuts'. (There are no real cuts - just not increasing as much as anticipated.) The press releases from various unions and community groups are shrill and alarmist and totally devoid of reality. We can do much more with much less here in NY. I don't hold out any great hope overall that his term in office will achieve all the goals I have for NY but he may not be the disaster I imagined.
ReplyDeleteGreat post JWF, linked at Reaganite Republican:
ReplyDeletehttp://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/2011/02/perusing-conservative-blogosphere.html
If any of those cuts are actually PASSED, I'll be shocked.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think they ought to make Cuomo pay for everything.
While he was at HUD, he pocketed millions of our tax dollars and probably an equal amount in bribes.
Hacking and slashing will have no appreciable long term effect as it ignores completely the real underlying problem. How can there be any real change while remaining slaves to the international banking cartel?
ReplyDeleteThe government has become a collection of poser puppets for the banking family of the Rothschilds. The Rothschilds have been in enslaving the People of the US via the fraudulent criminal conspiracy known as the illegal, unConstitutional Federal Reserve. The entire US government is now simply a puppet of the Rothschild banking dynasty.
All I want to hear are three magic three letter words,
“End the Fed”
Every political candidate must be evaluated based upon this single all telling crucial issue. You are either with the People or you are with the Rothschilds and their agents, the international bankers.
This is the new American litmus test.
http://smashabanana.blogspot.com