The Cuomo budget

The budget deal announced last night by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders builds on the fiscally responsible record of the governor's underappreciated predecessor, David Paterson. The $170 million in cuts to the historically profligate and unaccountable court system were justified, and education, too, has been lavishly funded over recent decades and thus was a reasonable source for savings -- although targeted cuts and reforms in bloated areas like special ed would have been preferable, along with a property tax cap.

The rhetoric about how this budget takes on the special interests is largely hokum. The trial lawyers' lobby, which has a special relationship with the Assembly leadership, succeeded in killing medical malpractice reform. Local pols got a partial restoration of state aid to areas hosting harness tracks -- a subsidy with no rational basis.

More significantly, the millionare's tax will be allowed to expire, leaving the state income tax system with five different rates, the top one for a single earner kicking in at the ridiculously low annual figure of $20,000. A rational tax-cutting agenda would eliminate taxes on those earning less than $20,000, but those people are not an interest group that politicians pay attention to. The drive to let the millionaire's tax expire was driven by the Democratic governor and supported by Senate Republicans, who as a result will see even more prisons than anticipated close in their upstate districts, with possibly harmful results to the state crime rate. Assembly Democrats made a less-than half-hearted and completely ineffective effort to save the tax -- as opposed to their vigorous and successful defense of the trial lawyers.

Comments

[Brian]

The special interest catered to was the real estate developers' lobby, which significantly funded both Cuomo's campaign and the pro-Cuomo advocacy group New Yorkers for Growth. They oppose the millionaires' tax. They want the property tax cap and don't care about the mandate relief that must be twinned with such a cap in order to avoid disastrous results. Special interests aren't tamed by this budget. Just different ones catered to.

[Brian]

Though I think it’s dubious to imply that closing underutilized prisons may harm the state’s crime rate. Prisons have been closed in the last few years. NYS has the lowest crime rate per capita it’s had in at least 50 years. NYS had one of the 10 lowest crime indexes in the country in 2009.

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/nycrime.htm

[Bob Conner]

It is my view that the steep drop in NYC crime over the last 20 years is in substantial part the result of increased incarceration made possible by the 1980s prison-building program undertaken by Gov. Mario Cuomo, along with more effective law enforcement and harsher penalties. While it is true that as crime drops you can reduce prison capacity, if you reduce it too much you may contribute to reversing the very substantial gains that have been made.

[Brian]

As long as remaining prison capacity is adequate to house criminals, then prison closures has no consequence on crime. Let’s be honest: the real consequence of these closures is on jobs. NYS has used prisons as a substitute for a morally tenable rural economic development policy.

[Bob Conner]

It seems to me your first sentence skates over some complex issues. When crime exploded from (about) 1960 to 1990, prison capacity became inadequate, which further worsened the crime rate because there was nowhere to put convicted felons which led to laws being weakly enforced. Overcrowding also made prisons more dangerous, and the double-bunking controversy could again become prominent with these new cuts.