Governor Paterson warned that a tax on the “wealthy” may be hitting New York State soon in an effort to close the budget gap that no one saw coming. In a prepared statement to the media, Paterson warned:
“Taxing the wealthy is probably going to be part of the solution if the deficit gets any worse, and all indications are that it probably will. If the deficit starts to grow again, then we’re out of moves. I’ve cut as much as I could.”
While the Governor gives his doomsday scenario and tells everyone that he’s already made cuts to everything, anyone in the know can just sit back and laugh because despite the “cuts,” Paterson’s plan for FY 2009 will see spending go up 5.5% from where it is right now. The question is, what did Paterson actually cut that caused spending to actually rise 5%?
Well, nothing. In a word, Paterson has done what politicians (particularly activist Democrats) have been doing for years; they call a slowed rate of growth a cut.
Allow me to give you an example.
Let’s say your allowance is $5 a week from mom and dad. Every year they raise your allowance one dollar, so that after five years, your allowance is now ten dollars a week. Realizing they can’t keep up the pace, they decide to raise it in year ten by only fifty cents. Your allowance after five years is now $10.50 instead of the $11.00 you were expecting it to be. In any normal mind, you got a $0.50 raise because your allowance went up $0.50. In the activist Democrat mind, your allowance was cut $0.50 because you didn’t get the dollar you normally got.
For example, while people gnash teeth about things like the “$700m cut to education,” buried in the explanation is that most of that relies on a four-year delay in increased aid to pre-kindergarten classes and a hike to tuition for CUNY and SUNY schools. The “doomsday” budget also includes “cuts” to Medicaid that, by some miracle, manage to raise spending on Medicaid by $1.1bn. How does that exactly work?
In the end, the New York State budget is a damn joke. Albany has no idea how to balance a budget, and for years has done so by increasing taxes and fees but rarely ever makes any cuts in their budget. This year is no exception because despite the “devastating effects” of the budget and the huge deficit we face, the Governor’s new budget is higher than the one that got us into this mess to begin with.
From Fox News, Wednesday December 17th:
Twenty-two of the 36 states facing budget deficits this fiscal year are increasing spending. Yes, increasing. Many states are collecting significantly less revenue than they counted on when budgets were drafted six months ago.
Spending cuts or tax increases will be necessitated because a number of states are required by law to balance their budgets. Cybercast News reports a survey from the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers released this week says the biggest offender is Nevada which at mid-year was $115 million in debt but plans to increase spending by just over 11%. New York will spend about 5.5% more despite being $1.8 billion in the red. Rounding out the top five are Ohio, North Carolina and Connecticut.
If that doesn’t stand out to you as utterly ridiculous, nothing will.