The New York state budget (updated)

Fred Dicker on his Talk 1300 radio show today was blasting this Daily Gazette editorial for being insufficiently harsh about the state budget, but I rise to the defense of my former colleagues in Schenectady. The editorial's partial defense of the budget does not extend to the ultrasecretive process, and it takes shots at the inclusion of the usual amounts of member items and the failure to reform education spending by reining in construction projects and special ed. It could have mentioned and criticized some counterproductive taxes, such as on health insurance and utilities, that seem likely to make the business climate even worse. It also could have noted a downstate urban tilt, with New York City getting $328 million in aid restored, making out much better than upstate cities like Albany and Schenectady which are losing significant AIM funding. (Saratoga Springs lost VLT aid, but that's a defensible cut from a statewide perspective.) Most Republicans and other harsh critics of the budget's high spending take care to avoid saying exactly where it should be cut.

In its reaction to the budget, the New York State School Boards Association said: "By delaying attempts to allow schools to operate more efficiently — such as a new pension tier, Wicks Law exemption, and procurement reform — the state continues to handcuff local districts." But NYSSBA played along with NYSUT and Assembly Democrats in killing Gov. Paterson's proposed property tax cap, which when combined with the failure to pass structural spending restraint will leave local districts with big and immediate problems.

This all presumes that the budget deal holds together in the Senate. I'll go down to the Capitol this afternoon to see how it's going.

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[Terry O'Neill, Esq.]

DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES

All across the Empire State there looms a gathering gloom.
But that did not affect the mood of those three men in a room.
Their calendar is full of latter days of wine and roses.
The deed that they were doing there caused us all to hold our noses.
Washington printed a pile of cash to help us stay afloat.
Instead they used the Stimulus to exacerbate our bloat.
No special interest needs to fret or be the least bit frightened;
No belt of theirs will have a single notch that needs be tightened.
Austerity is what we need to get through times this hard.
And so the three dispensed with pork -- and dished us up pure lard.