....August 8, 12:04 PM
 
 
 
Governor Calls Legislature Back To Albany

The text of the speech delivered by Governor David Paterson to the citizens of New York State during a live TV broadcast:

My fellow New Yorkers,
Our state now faces increasingly harsh economic times. When I travel across the State I see communities suffering. Everywhere I go I meet people who are losing their jobs and their homes. I meet families forced to pay more for gasoline and for food, while their paychecks stay the same. Next winter some of these families will have to choose between heating their homes and feeding their children. The rising costs of health care mean that they can’t afford to get sick. The rising costs of education mean that parents can no longer prepare for their children to be in the work force. The damage on Wall Street year was $5 billion. I immediately ordered cuts to state spending, but the situation has gotten worse. Tomorrow I will submit a budget plan that places our deficit for next year at $6.4 billion – that is $1.4 billion higher than it was just a few short months ago. How could this happen? It’s simple. Costs are rising steadily, revenues are dropping dramatically.

In the beginning of May, our budget director projected our New York State deficit over the next three years at $21.5 billion – that was a record. But things have changed. That number has now erupted to $26.2 billion – a staggering 22 percent increase in less than 90 days.

In June of 2007, the 16 banks that pay the most on taxes to their profits remitted $173 million to our New York State Treasury. This June, just a month ago, they sent us $5 million – a 97 percent decrease. Our economic woes are so severe that I wanted to talk to you personally this evening about where we stand. The fact is: we confront harsh times. Let me be honest: this situation will get worse before it gets better.

But the time to act is now. We cannot waste any further opportunities. We can’t wait and hope that this problem will resolve itself. If we do, we will lose our opportunity to turn this situation around. These times call for action and today I promise you there will be action.

Today I am calling the legislature back for an emergency economic session on Tuesday, August [19th].

In the interim, my administration will confront the following issues: addressing the size of the state work force; further cuts to agency spending and generating proposals for public and private partnerships for our State assets.

When I meet with the legislature, we will work together to help New Yorkers cope with this crisis. We will continue working on a property tax cap to lighten the load for homeowners and we will find a way to curtail the rising costs of home heating next winter. I will do everything I can to make sure that New York’s families do not freeze when it gets cold. My message to the legislature is that next year’s budget process starts now.

New York’s families are already making the tough choices. Every time you fill up a tank of gas or go to the supermarket you are learning to do more with less. New Yorker’s are prioritizing spending every day. The lesser crowding of the New York State Thruway is an indication that too many of you have postponed holidays or canceled your vacations.

Now your government is going to follow your lead. We are going to end the legislators’ vacations and bring them back to Albany to reprioritize the way we manage New York State’s finances. For too long we have done less with more and paid more for less. Now government will do what families have done when their incomes have fallen – we will cut spending. Government will learn to do more with less.

But I can’t do it alone; I need all of your help. I’m asking for the State leaders in the public and private sector, in labor, those who serve in Washington, owners of business and others to join us in this great effort.

It is time for New York and other governments to cut up our credit cards. The era of buy now, pay later and later is over. The faster we address this crisis, the faster and stronger we will emerge from it. That is the path to a better and more prosperous New York.

I’d like to thank the networks for extending me this opportunity and all of you for watching and listening this evening. Good night.

 
 
Paterson and Silver Circle Each Other, Both Act Carefully

By Henry J. Stern

The Battle of the Budget, which began with Governor Paterson’s radio and television address continues.

The speech above was relatively brief and delivered in five minutes to a state-wide audience. It is worth the two or three minutes it will take you to read it. It is particularly impressive to watch the governor speak. He must deliver his lines from memory due to his extremely limited vision. There are no teleprompters or other tools to assist him. He held the press conference sitting alone, not surrounded by staff.

Paterson’s presentation generates sympathy for his bravery in undertaking to make specific, substantive speeches in public. His voice is relatively soft and pleasing to the ear, and his appearance, even with a beard, is neat and trim. He has the potential to be a popular and persuasive speaker, if he is thoughtful and fair in preparing his remarks. He gave many of his listeners and viewers the feeling that he is credible, certainly more so than the legislative leaders who have been berated for so many years.

When one gets down to the specifics of budget cuts, however, we encounter a certain vagueness. It is like the parties are circling for a potential struggle, but neither has yet thrown a specific punch. Don’t worry, they will come.

In public finance, two axioms may be cited. One deals with taxation: “Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax the man behind the tree.” Another, of more general application is, “It all depends whose ox is gored.”

Ever eager to promote controversy, especially where it exists, the Post led with: “Gov. Paterson and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver clashed over the deteriorating state budget today as Silver bluntly questioned the governor’s grim fiscal warnings and challenged him to raise taxes on the wealthy.”

The Times waded into the conflict in an editorial: “Across the country, states are slashing their budgets as tax revenues dwindle. New York, with its heavy dependence on Wall Street, is far from immune to the nation’s economic slide, as Gov. David Paterson this week made abundantly clear.”

The Times’ sympathies are with the governor, as they continue: “Cutting the budget is never easy, especially in an election year. Already the special interests, the ones that fund campaigns, have lined up to defend their shares.”

The editorial continues: “New York’s budget has traditionally hidden hundreds of millions of dollars in slush funds, money that legislators and the governor hand out to their communities.”

The Post and the News supported the governor and budget cuts, and to a greater or lesser extent mocked the Speaker for resisting, although what he is resisting is not that clear.

The News editorialized: “Gov. Paterson laid it on the line to New Yorkers Tuesday with strong words that demand even stronger action to rescue the state from dismal and worsening financial straits. There was music to the ears when Paterson said in a TV address: ‘For too long, we have done less with more and paid more for less.’”

The contrarian Sun agreed with the governor’s exhortation to the Legislature to reduce spending, and said it understood why he tried to create a sense of crisis. later it added: “Still, for all that was good about Mr. Paterson’s televised address to New Yorkers yesterday, we could have done without the melodrama.”

The struggle is just beginning to unfold. At this point, we see on one side the governor, the senate, the civic community and the press.

On the other side are the Speaker, the unions, the left Democrats and the Working Families Party. The lineup may vary from issue to issue, and the outcome is likely to be indefinite, without a clear victory for either side. Whichever side prevails in August, the others will have an issue for the September primary and the November elections. In the end, the people will decide the issue, which is something they rarely have an opportunity to do under New York State’s incumbent-protection laws and gerrymanders.

Allies of the Speaker say there is no crisis this year, that the governor alone can reduce expenditures by enough to close the gap, that it is much too early to be talking about next year’s budget, and that if there is a problem, the state should raise its top income tax rate beyond 8.14 per cent. New York City’s top rate is 4 per cent, which means upper middle class city residents now pay 12.14%, in addition to the Federal income tax rate of 35 per cent.

These secret pools are the place to start.
StarQuest@NYCivic.org

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