Cuomo exposes dirty budget trick

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Democratic Gov Cuomo taking a page from next door's NJ's GOP slasher Chris Christie.
Of course, MATH and no printing press dictates both their positions.

Governor Cuomo exposes budget trick that automatically increases Medicaid and Education spending each year - NYPOST.com
BRENDAN SCOTT/FREDRIC U. DICKER
February 1, 2011

ALBANY - Gov. Cuomo yesterday condemned the entire state budget process as a scam ginned up by special interests that added as much as $9 billion to the deficit before anyone - the governor included - laid a hand on the upcoming spending plan.

The proposal is expected to call for the most severe cuts in state history. On the eve of his first budget address today, Cuomo released a bombshell op-ed column for the state's newspapers comparing the "sham" process by which state leaders craft each year's spending plan to the best schemes of insurance companies and Wall Street bankers he battled as attorney general.

GOV ON 'DEFICIT' DECEIT http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/new_york_budget_sham_fnwAxVkmAuHKW4bw9z1IeP

The Democratic executive expressed "shock" to find a projected 13% spending increase driven largely by a series of automatic spending increases buried into law by generations of lobbyists and complicit legislators.

Such permanent rate hikes and formulas ensure that spending in areas like education and Medicaid continue to explode despite annual budget cuts.

"When a governor takes office, in many ways the die has already been cast," Cuomo said of the budget increases.

"This is the system that has brought New York to the brink, and it is why we are the highest 'spending-and-taxing' state in the nation with programs that fail to perform for the people.

"This all must end.

If not for such laws, the current budget gap might only be $1 billion or $2 billion -- not the $10 billion often cited by his own budget officials, Cuomo said.

 

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Gov. Cuomo unveils plan for massive spending cuts in bid to close $10 billion budget gap with no new taxes - NYPOST.com
Gov goes on $9B chopping spree
$133B plan hammers key agencies
BRENDAN SCOTT/FREDRIC U. DICKER
February 2, 2011

ALBANY -- Shrieks echoed through the Capitol yesterday as Gov. Cuomo unleashed a $133 billion hack-and-slash spending plan that would subject schools, hospitals and the state workforce to some of the deepest cuts in recent memory and spare virtually no aspect of state government.

The governor's hard-times budget proposal would close a projected $10 billion gap with nearly $9 billion in cuts and no new borrowing or broad-based tax hikes. Cuts included $2.9 billion each in projected spending from Medicaid and local school aid -- among the largest on record.

"New York state is functionally bankrupt," Cuomo warned in his budget presentation to lawmakers, who will face pressure by special-interest groups to resist the cuts. "In a down economy, this is a death spiral," he said.

Cuomo ordered a 10% across-the-board spending cut to state agencies and threatened as many as 9,800 layoffs if public-employee unions reject a call for $450 million in annual concessions and givebacks.
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This couldn't be done on the Federal level as easily - but still will be done eventually.