ALBANY—Shortly after it was presented by Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, Senate Republicans held a press conference to complain that the deficit-reduction package was drafted without input from Republican members of the State Senate.
"You've had all the talk about unity and reform," said State Senator John Bonacic, responding to the outline of a proposed bill to bridge this year's $1.6 billion budget deficit. "When you have a secretive process, you lose out."
Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos, his voice at times rising to a shout, gestured to the members standing behind them – most with hair some shade of silver – and asked who had more expertise in solving the deficit: former long-time committee chairs "or Hiram Monserrate?"
He said his members were given the proposed bills to review at noon.
"Pick our brains a little bit, have a discussion," Skelos said, before adding that his senators will be voting against measures "because of the lack of transparency" and because he doesn't approve of what he called "stealing" from a SUNY tuition hike and from the accounts of various public authorities.
"Shame on you!" Bonacic screamed on the State Senate floor.
In announcing the package, State Senator Malcolm Smith acknowledged, "Ee produced this package in our conference. Shelly met with his members, the governor had his piece."
Tradtionally, attacking Democrats along these lines has been the task of Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco, but he hasn't been around the Capitol.
Tedisco is running for Congress, and spent the middle of the day opening a campaign headquarters in an Albany suburb.
Skelos is now the voice of the loyal opposition.
UPDATE: Tedisco was present for the session, his chief of staff called to say. He issued this statement on the deficit reduction plan.
What was passed today wasn’t a ‘DRP’ – it was a ‘PPTP,’ a ‘Pain Pass Through Proposal.’ That is precisely what the Governor’s plan does: passes fiscal pain onto the backs of local taxpayers. This Governor still refuses to accept the fact that New York cannot tax its way out of recession and that raising taxes and hiking fees will only deepen and prolong the financial crisis. That the first bill passed by the Senate Democrat Majority will end up making health care more expensive for those in need just proves that in Albany, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
