The State of New York: Part Two

Governor Paterson is talking budget again. Today he revealed in a public meeting with state legislators that the deficit has reached $3,000,000,000, some $900,000,000 more than was initially projected. Though he urged legislators to find spending cuts to help balance the budget, no date was set for them to return to Albany to do so. Reporters were much more concerned about Paterson's election bid rather than issues with the state deficit. Typical. I guess we have all been so deluged with budget deficit numbers and projections that this is simply not news?

Meanwhile, hundreds of MTA employees protested outside of MTA headquarters today against the MTA's decision not to accept a binding arbitration ruling that granted them an 11% raise over the next 3 years. The MTA is appealing this decision because they claim that they simply cannot afford it. In fact, New York State definitely cannot afford it. It is interesting that an arbitrator could grant such a generous raise given the financial woes of the state. But, even if the state has no money, all of the various unions still expect to get their just desserts as usual.

Today Paterson stated that he was not going to offer any suggestions for budget cuts because he did not want to hear any flack from the unions until the legislators meet again. In the most budget showdown, the unions won out and the budget actually went up several billion dollars despite the fact that tax revenues would continue to decline. Attempting to roll back what has been granted to the various unions is going to get nasty again. But, none of this will really be big news now, will it?