I was wrong to suggest the possibility of New York legislators ever being embarrassed by demanding higher spending in the face of ever growing budget deficits. According to the AP, "Senate Democratic spokesman Austin Shafran says the Senate and Assembly leaders are meeting separately because [Gov.] Paterson refuses to negotiate with them." That's a reference to Paterson's prior statement rejecting a two-way Senate-Assembly budget deal, when he proceeded to veto 6,700 budget items. "If he changes his position again, we will be happy to meet with him anywhere, anytime to discuss restorations and closing down the budget," Shafran said.
The key word there is "restorations," meaning the Legislature wants to revisit those vetoes and get the money spent. According to the AP's always well informed Mike Gormley, "lawmakers want to negotiate the restoration of about 6,700 budget items added by the Legislature that Paterson vetoed. They include $190 million in pork-barrel grants for lawmakers to be sent to health, social service and civic groups back in their districts.
"Paterson said he won't negotiate until legislative leaders come to him with agreements on his two critical issues: A contingency plan in case $1 billion in federal Medicaid money doesn't come through, as feared, and a plan to give more power to the public university systems, including allowing them to raise tuition without Albany's approval."
The Assembly position was fughedabout both the contingency plan for the Medicaid money and the public university reform, but Senate Democratic leader John Sampson has backed away from his deal with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and expressed willingness to consider the two Paterson proposals. It's the Senate that has not passed the revenue bill, which according to Sampson is because it does not include those measures.
None of that stopped Shafran, Sampson's chief spokesman, from issuing this insult to the governor in the AP story: "Legislative leaders are working to resolve the outstanding budget issues and the Senate hopes to see engagement by the chief executive in some form other than another press release." He didn't explain how the Legislature proposes to pay for any "restorations." I guess when there is no logic to your position, you're left with the politics of nyah-nyah.
Comments