To this end, Mr. Paterson’s budget seeks to spread the pain, cutting education and health care by about $1 billion apiece, the largest cuts, given that the two sectors represent the largest controllable portions of the budget. He has also proposed taxes that are sure to be poorly received, including a sugared-beverage tax that would bring in $1 billion annually once implemented, and more than $200 million in new taxes on the health industry.
“We can no longer tax the wealthiest New Yorkers; we can no longer borrow so as to increase our debt service; we can no longer engage in fiscal gimmicks, because there are none anymore,” Mr. Paterson said in his address Tuesday.
Shortly after, influential interest groups throughout the state broadcast their various beefs, a preview of fights to come. The powerful Greater New York Hospital Association, said the budget “weakens health care beyond repair.” The oil and gas industry bristled at a new tax on natural gas; the Alliance for Quality Education called the budget a “colossal reversal” in state commitment to education; and Unshackle Upstate, a business group, called the proposed new taxes “simply unacceptable.”
Some of the governor’s measures have already been tried, and withdrawn. The state typically proposes cuts in aid to the city, as it did Tuesday, only to later accede to demands of restoration from City Hall; and the “soda tax” on sugared beverages was tried in a form last year.
IF THE PAST HOLDS true, Mr. Paterson will meet his greatest public resistance in the Senate, the 62-member body controlled by 32 Democrats who have strained to form consensus on anything substantial. Generally, this has forced the Democratic conference to follow the lead of its most pugnacious, confrontational members, who typically hold fringe views.
With the public perception of the Legislature lower than that of the governor, Mr. Paterson has been disparaging the body with frequency lately, an apparent political tactic in which he positions himself as above lawmakers’ dysfunction.
This has further added to the strain.
“Unfortunately, right now, the state budget is very much affected by politics,” said State Senator Eric Schneiderman, a Manhattan Democrat who called the governor’s proposal “a starting point.” “I think the governor’s political fortunes are not doing well, and because of the way it affects him and the way it affects other people who are working with him, it creates a problem.”
Generally, the Senate Democrats are reserving strong stances, and in a statement Tuesday, Senate Democratic conference leader John Sampson said Democrats were reviewing the budget. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, meanwhile, singled out the education cuts as excessive.
While it’s far too soon to predict exactly how negotiations will play out, there is strong recent precedent for impasse and stalemate. When the governor convened the Legislature late last year to solve a midyear $3.2 billion budget deficit, it took more than a month of discussions and numerous special sessions to wrangle an accord on cuts and one-shot revenue measures with all the Democratic members. That accord, however, did not fill the gap, at least by the governor’s measure: It left a hole of $500 million dollars.
Still, endless stalemate is not a foregone conclusion. Last year’s budget, facing similar levels of cuts, was resolved without much bluster from lawmakers (although they were aided by an influx of more than $6 billion in federal stimulus money and placed a new income tax on the wealthy). And with the proposed budget, there were no calls for massive layoffs-a sure way to spark insurrection from the public employees’ unions.
There does seem to be an acknowledgement among legislators that there is a large budget hole-an issue that has not always drawn consensus in the recent past-and that a dysfunctional Legislature does not look good to the public, particularly in an election year.
“I think, by and large, everybody thinks we’re working around the same ballpark reality,” said State Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat from Manhattan who is vice chair of the finance committee.
“We are all motivated to be-or appear to the public to be-responsible adults,” she said.
ebrown@observer.com
