Anyone here a state worker? Ch 6 used the "L" word
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
Yes, I heard the 'L' word too as I watched channel 6 tonight. I also am not a state working but I have friends and family who are. Here is just a brief recap:
Governor David Paterson is preparing a speech Tuesday evening for New Yorkers that is expected to address the economic situation for the state.
CBS 6 Political Analyst and New York Post state editor Fred Dicker is reporting that Governor Paterson is planning to announce cuts to state services, a reduction of the state work force possibly through layoffs, and other economic measures to deal with the plunging state revenues.
A spokesman from the governor's office says the speech is scheduled for 5:10 pm Tuesday and Dicker reports that the hope is that Governor Paterson is hoping to have his address aired live on the early evening newscasts.
One source also tells Dicker that Paterson is prepared to call state lawmakers back to Albany for a special session.
Governor Paterson's speech with be carried live on both cbs6albany.com and on CBS 6 News.
I listened to the governor's speech. I also listened to a commentary by Fred Dicker after the speech. Mr. Dicker stated that he doubts that there will be any changes. He said that the legislatures are coming up on an election year and they do not want to jeopardize their campaigns by cutting spending to the special interest groups, who he said pretty much run the state. And the governor has no power without the actions of the legislatures.
So let us keep tabs folks on who is and who is not willing to cut spending. We have the power to vote them in or out this year.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Old Shelly Silver is already taking a wait and see stance to see if the economy improves in a couple of months b4 any action will be taken. I agree Bumble, Fred Dicker has it right nothing will change except the fact that our taxes will go up.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
I was just trying to speak New York/Soprano lingo.......
Well listen up, 'yo' ....you are in Rotterdam. The burbs. Gee, for a minute there I thought you were one of those illegals.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
‘There will be action’Paterson calls back lawmakers to work on fiscal crisis BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press
Gov. David Paterson on Tuesday again said New York state government faces an economic crisis and as proof said the projected budget deficit for the 2009-10 fiscal year has increased more than $1 billion — to $6.4 billion — since April. So he’s calling the Legislature back “from vacation” for a special emergency economic session on Aug. 19 to cut spending, stem falling revenues and protect New Yorkers from rising property taxes and heating bills this winter. “It’s simple,” Paterson said in a rare statewide televised address for a governor. “Costs are rising steadily and revenues are dropping dramatically.” “These times call for action and today I promise you there will be action,” Paterson said. Paterson, however, didn’t make any specific orders. He also didn’t call for some of the drastic measures other states have already taken, including layoffs and cuts to health programs for the poor and to schools. He said he prefers to work with the Legislature to turn back the “crisis.” He said details will be released as soon as today. “I think it’s a good sign that he’s talking tough,” said Elizabeth Lynam of the independent Citizens Budget Commission. However, she adds that the Legislature and Paterson, now in his fourth month on the job, “are behind the eight ball.” “There was volatility before, uncertainty and bad news,” she said. “They are behind the curve.” However, she said that by New York’s standards, this action early in the first half of the fiscal year begun April 1 is a quicker start. The drawback is that 2008 is an election year for the Legislature, and lawmakers usually take the time after the regular session, which ended in June, to campaign. They are also unlikely to want to cut funding for the special interests that fund their campaigns. Labor unions and special interests, including those from health care and schools, have already sought to blunt any proposals against them, saying they support the need to cut spending but not in their area. “That’s why this is really going to be a test of the governor’s leadership,” Lynam said. Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos said he supports Paterson’s plan to further cut spending in his agencies and that all state spending should be reviewed. But the Long Island Republican said he wouldn’t touch the most politically sensitive big-ticket item: school aid. State school aid is now more than $20 billion a year after a series of record increases, including a $1.8 billion increase in April. “I think that would be wrong,” Skelos said at a press event on Long Island. “We made a commitment to our school districts; we made a commitment to our property taxpayers. Cutting school aid would be totally inappropriate.” “We were a free-wheeling, runaway train for the last five or six years,” said Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith of Queens, the successor to Paterson as leader of the Senate Democrats. Earlier this year, Smith had called for Albany to make harder fiscal choices but got no support from Paterson or legislative majority leaders. Smith had called for $2 billion in cuts through a hiring freeze, elimination of “nonessential” capital spending, taking cash from public authorities left over from the past fiscal year, and requiring technological efficiencies.
New York economy officially in recession, state budget director says The Business Review (Albany) - by Adam Sichko
Gov. David Paterson and his budget director said today the state faces "the specter of stagflation" as it tries to cut more than $1 billion in spending.
Budget Director Laura Anglin has concluded the state's economy is officially in a recession.
Paterson has called state legislators back for an "emergency economic session" on Aug. 19. He wants them to cut about $600 million in state spending in the current budget, on top of measures he announced today.
That includes a hiring freeze and a 7 percent reduction in spending at state agencies. That will generate most of the $650 million Paterson said he can save with such unilateral actions.
"These are essential areas we're looking at cutting. That's how bad our economic situation is," Paterson said at a press conference in Manhattan.
"We've been running a deficit, but we've been bailed out by Wall Street many times," Paterson said.
Those times have ended, he said.
Another way Paterson wants to raise or save money is by developing public-private partnerships for state assets, including lease-back programs. In such a case, the state would sell an asset--a bridge or tunnel, for instance--to a private investor, who would then immediately lease the asset back to the state.
Unlike his predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, Paterson said he is not going to sell any state assets. Spitzer wanted to privatize the state lottery to start an endowment for the state's public universities.
"I don't want to sell the Thruway," Paterson said. "But we need to look and think creatively about how to create long-term revenue streams and provide opportunities for the state to grow."
He declined to elaborate.
Anglin, the budget director, outlined several negative trends in the state's economy, including $225 billion in subprime mortgage loans that banks have written off, enabling them to take that money off their bottom lines.
Several unions criticized Paterson's call for spending cuts and a hiring freeze.
CSEA, the state's largest public employee union, said reducing the state's 200,000-member work force would be a "sham."
"When the governor talks about families who can't afford to heat their homes, can't afford to put gas in their cars and can't afford groceries, he is describing his own workers and their families who will only be hurting more after he takes away their jobs," said president Danny Donohue.
Several unions criticized Paterson's call for spending cuts and a hiring freeze.
CSEA, the state's largest public employee union, said reducing the state's 200,000-member work force would be a "sham."
"When the governor talks about families who can't afford to heat their homes, can't afford to put gas in their cars and can't afford groceries, he is describing his own workers and their families who will only be hurting more after he takes away their jobs," said president Danny Donohue.
Show me the money trail............................time to start over like the rest of us......and this is why having other people speak for you dumbs you down....they sound like NIMBYS to me.......dont these folks pay union dues????? where do they go and what do they do for them????? SHOW ME THE MONEY TRAIL.......
maybe the unions could start a food pantry for their constituents.....or how about coupons to pay their heating bills ,cell phone bills, cable bills etc......they can shake down anyone they want........it's already been done......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
CAPITOL Budget pain ahead for N.Y. Paterson freezes hiring, orders cuts in agency spending BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press
Gov. David Paterson has frozen most hiring, ordered an additional 7 percent cut in agency spending and called on the Legislature to approve $600 million in additional cuts to shore up state finances in a New York economy that his budget director says is “officially” in recession. Paterson on Wednesday proposed cutting state spending by a total of $1.23 billion in the current budget to offset a “mammoth” decline in revenues. He projects there will be $26.2 billion in budget deficits over the next three years, a high figure even for a state government that routinely contends with deficits because of rising spending. “We are now officially saying New York is in a recession,” said Budget Director Laura Anglin. She said New York’s recessions have historically lasted 25 months, longer than national recessions. Paterson said he will seek the Legislature’s approval for $600 million in cuts spread throughout state programs, which may include midyear reductions to school districts. But Paterson said he doesn’t currently expect any tax increases, including a temporary income tax hike for millionaires pushed by Assembly Democrats. He said the 7 percent cut in agency funding, on top of a 3.35 percent cut in the spring, shouldn’t hurt services at parks, in state police, for highway maintenance or in support for schools and hospitals. Paterson has also called the Legislature back to Albany for an emergency economic session on Aug. 19 to enact the $600 million in cuts that need the Legislature’s approval. That could include funding cuts to higher education, local hospitals and other programs as well as the leasing of state assets and services — such as the lottery — to private companies. Those cuts, which could force higher local school tax bills, will contain most of the pain Paterson said is needed. As for the $630 million in cuts Paterson can order alone within the executive branch, the Democrat said a “hard freeze” on hiring is now in effect. That doesn’t mean any layoffs, but each of the thousands of openings each month must now be deemed essential by the governor’s office before it is filled. Layoffs are possible if the Legislature doesn’t meet its cost-savings target. “It is up to all of us to disengage from a kind of self-absorption,” Paterson said. He referred to years of high spending in the Legislature, where he served for 20 years, that created budget deficits bailed out by Wall Street tax revenue. “We have to wake up New York to the possibility that we all have to feel some pain.” Paterson’s proposal to cut $1.23 billion from the $56.3 billion general fund in the state budget amounts to about 2 percent, if the Legislature agrees to its $600 million part. But any cut in funding is rare in Albany, where special interests including public worker unions have great influence. “It’s a start, but it’s only a start,” said E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, part of the fiscally conservative Manhattan Institute. “It’s good that he’s proactive. But the question is, could he be more proactive?” State Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long likes the Democratic governor’s tone but called the cuts “a very small amount. “While it may be baby steps, it at least is a beginning,” Long said. He said Paterson issued a rallying cry against high spending and taxes that drive employers and young New Yorkers out of state. He said this election year, whether a lawmaker is “Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, they should go back and say, ‘My concern was about my children and your children.’ The time has come to spend within our means.” As for the Legislature, the Senate’s Republican majority has already taken cuts in school aid off the negotiating table. Meanwhile Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, said his majority won’t cut its highest priority health and education programs: pre-kindergarten, school aid that has hired more teachers and reduced class sizes and health care for the elderly. “I would not support the layoff of state workers,” said Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a Long Island Republican. “We don’t balance the state budget by throwing people out on the street.”
NEW YORK STATE Observers list ways NY can tighten belt Cost reduction, millionaire tax suggested BY SARA FOSS Gazette Reporter
How serious is New York’s looming fiscal crisis? It’s so serious it may force the state to do something that’s hardly considered its strong suit: cut spending. Last week Gov. David Paterson announced that projections for next year’s budget deficit had risen from $5 billion to $6.4 billion, the result of falling revenues and rising government expenses, and that this year’s budget is running a $630 million deficit. In a televised address, he said that the state is officially in a recession, and called for a 7 percent cut in state agency spending and a hiring freeze, as well as a property tax cap and an increase in home heating assistance. Budget observers, even as they praised Paterson for attempting to deal with the problem, said the gov- ernor failed to mention key areas of spending, such as Medicaid, health care, school aid and economic development. “To find significant savings, they’re going to have to re-examine bigger ticket items,” said Elizabeth Lynam, deputy research director for the Citizens Budget Commission, a non-profit group that monitors the state’s finances. “The things [Paterson] is talking about are about as non-controversial as you could make them,” said E.J. McMahon, director of the Empire Center for New York State Policy. He said the problem isn’t so much falling revenue as overspending; the state’s revenues are expected to increase by 2 percent next year, while spending is expected to jump 11 percent. The bulk of this spending, he noted, is on Medicaid and school aid. “You don’t have to cut Medicaid and schools so much as stop growing them,” McMahon said. “Paterson hasn’t mentioned Medicaid. I don’t know where he is on Medicaid.” He noted that Medicaid and school aid comprise about $4 billion of the $6.4 billion shortfall. “They cannot close the gap totally with state operations savings,” he said. SOLUTIONS SUGGESTED In a detailed press release, the Citizens Budget Commission outlined steps the group believes the state could take to save $4.7 billion. The first step involves restructuring Medicaid for an annual savings of $1.8 billion; right now, the state spends far beyond national norms for its Medicaid program, the group says, accounting for 14 percent of Medicaid spending nationally. The Citizens Budget Commission also suggests reducing state operations costs by renegotiating fringe benefits for employees and retirees. According to the group, the state could save $75 million annually by requiring an additional 4 percent contribution toward family plan premiums for post-1983 hires, another $216 million by restructuring pensions. “Many government workers are now paid more than their private sector counterparts — the generous health insurance and retirement packages developed to attract them to work in the public sector are no longer justified,” the press release states. Ron Deutsch, executive director of New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness, warned against cutting state services and jobs, saying it would reduce the amount of money flowing into local economies. “Spending cuts can deepen and lengthen a recession,” he said. He also suggested that New York stop funding projects that are of questionable benefit to state residents. “The governor needs to be more open to ways to generate savings,” he said. “If you’re looking to generate savings, you could say, ‘We’re not going to do the (Advanced Micro Devices computer chip factory in Malta).’ ” Paterson should also consider ending Empire Zones, industrial development agencies and brownfi eld cleanup programs, he said. MILLIONAIRE’S TAX Progressive groups called on the state to enact a “millionaire’s tax,” something Paterson has said he’s not considering. Mark Dunlea, executive director of the Hunger Action Network of New York State, agreed. He said the tax cuts for the wealthy enacted during the Pataki era cost the state $16 billion annually, but have failed to stimulate the economy or stave off recession. The problem, he said, is that the state is afraid of Wall Street, which accounts for 20 percent of state revenues. “But it’s not like Wall Street is a friend to us,” Dunlea continued. “The middle class has watched their 401ks disappear. We’d like to see our governor be a little more assertive and say there’s a lot of fi - nancial abuse going on here. Rather than step away from Wall Street because it’s so important to our economy, we should say, ‘These guys are causing our problems.’ ” Faced with an $11.5 billion defi cit in 2003, the state enacted a threeyear income tax surcharge on the state’s wealthier residents. Deutsch said this measure was successful, and that it didn’t hurt the rich as people with incomes over $200,000 saw their incomes increase 105 percent between 2003 and 2008. He noted that the tax rate on the richest 1 percent of New Yorkers — those with an average income of $1.6 million — is 6.5 percent, compared to 11.6 for families earning between $27,000 and $44,000. But McMahon said a tax on millionaires would only exacerbate the state’s financial problems by making wealthy New Yorkers less likely to make critical investments and spend money in the state. “It would hurt the economy even more and create bigger holes in the future, even if it floats the boat in the short term,” he said. He also said that such tax increases are not fair, because they don’t affect the vast majority of the state’s residents. “This desire to narrowly target, to raise mass sums of money from nobody you know, is a sucker’s bet,” he said. “A classic surcharge affects everyone. But they want 99 percent of the people to pay nothing more.” McMahon also said that it isn’t fair to compare 2003 to the current situation, because the tax hikes enacted that year occurred right around the time the federal government passed one of the biggest tax cuts in history. Lynam said that a millionaire’s tax wouldn’t generate the amount of money the state needs to close the budget gap. A tax plan floated by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, for example, would only raise about $1.5 billion. “You still have a long way to go,” she said. “There are going to have to be some other things happening.” LOOK AT SPENDING “We think the first line of defense should be the spending side,” Lynam said. “Taxes in New York are high already. The Legislature needs to go through and make a rigorous effort to rein in spending. Then they can come to the taxpayers — that might be warranted.” Dunlea described the state’s Medicaid system as “irrational,” and said that the state has protected special interests when it comes to health care. “There are lots of savings that are very possible in health care, and no one has tried them yet,” he said. For instance, the state could try purchasing drugs in bulk to save money. He also called for greater oversight of the state’s economic development programs. “We have very ineffective economic development programs in New York,” he said. “That’s not a small amount of money.” Hany Shawky, a professor of fi - nance and economics at the School of Business at the University at Albany, said he thought the state should consider a millionaire’s tax, but only a temporary one. “It would have to be temporary,” he said. “You don’t want to scare people away. We want rich people to stay in New York.” In his speech, Paterson asked the state Legislature to return to the Capitol on Aug. 19 for an “emergency economic session” to find a way to save $1.2 billion — $630 million in executive agency spending cuts, and $600 million in additional legislative action — with the goal of getting a jump on next year’s budget process. The 7 percent reduction in state agency spending Paterson proposed comes on top of a 3.35 percent cut already included in this year’s budget. Shawky predicted that the state would be on firmer financial footing by 2009. In the meantime, some painful cuts must be made. “Cutting expenses is a must in this scenario, but it will take a lot of sacrifice, even though every agency head believes there’s no fat to cut,” Shawky said. “In New York State, we’ve lived through a lot of cuts. New York government is not as fat as people like to think.”
Paterson wants $500 million in Medicaid cuts, plus decreases in pork and local aid
By RICK KARLIN Capital Bureau Monday, August 11, 2008
ALBANY -- Gov. David Paterson wants lawmakers next week to approve what could be more than a half billion dollars in Medicaid cuts.
The governor also wants decreases in pork barrel projects and $250 million in local assistance grants as a way to stave off what he predicts will be a growing deficit next year due to a faltering economy and continuing troubles on Wall Street.
``We're headed for even greater problems than we have now,'' the governor said, adding that he believes next year's projected $6.4 billion deficit could grow even more.
The governor said he has laid out his plan to legislative leaders and wants them to approve the election-year cuts next Tuesday when they come back for a special session.
Paterson isn't completely dictating the cuts, however, as he's said he needs $600 million in cuts to balance next year's budget. His options amount to $1.04 billion but lawmakers may pick and choose where to make the deepest cuts.
One area that is off the table, however, are cuts in school spending, which last year saw a record $1.8 billion increase in state aid. With the school year starting in less than a month, Paterson said, such cuts would be too disruptive.
Logged
....you are in Rotterdam. The burbs. Gee, for a minute there I thought you were one of those illegals.
