OUR VIEW: Budget fiasco lingers

Editorials

August 11, 2010

Anonymous The Tonawanda News The Tonawanda News Wed Aug 11, 2010, 01:36 AM EDT

— — Last week New York legislators overcame their ineptitude to pass a state budget.

Despite being four months overdue, the spending plan should have brought a sigh of relief. It didn’t.

E.J. McMahon of the fiscally conservative Manhattan Institute said the $136 billion plan “shapes up as a flimsy house of cards that could begin to collapse before the year is out.”

Kathryn Wylde, CEO of the Partnership for New York City, was disappointed there were no structural budget reforms because another big deficit and difficult budget is expected next year.

The 2010-11 budget totals about $136 billion, after Paterson vetoed about 6,700 spending items the Legislature added to Paterson’s approved budget proposal.

Major elements of the budget include:

• A $1.60 per pack increase in the cigarette tax to $3.40 a pack, the highest in the nation.

• Eliminating the sales tax exemption on clothing and shoes costing under $110. The exemption would end in October, then return April 1, but exempt clothing and shoes worth $55. The $110 exemption would return April 1, 2012. That is supposed to bring in $330 million.

• Cutting in half the charitable deductions for New Yorkers making $10 million a year.

• Expanding the hours of the Quick Draw gambling game run by the Lottery Division, often in bars, and expanding the hours of video slot machines at race tracks.

• Delaying $100 million in business tax breaks.

Here’s what Albany failed to do:

• Reduce the pork. New Yorkers were facing a $9.2 billion deficit and guess what? This budget contains $190 million in pork-barrel grants for lawmakers to send to health, social service and civic groups in their districts.

• Cap property taxes. This could still be accomplished though. Gov. David Paterson has threatened to recall legislators to Albany in October to push a vote on his plan to limit property tax growth to 4 percent annually.

• Set the stage for recovery. New York was hard hit by the Great Recession. Relief isn’t expected anytime soon. So we have lawmakers who pass a budget that increases spending. At best, this is fiscally irresponsible.

Perhaps Kenneth Adams, CEO of the state Business Council, summed it up best.

“It’s official: Albany has enacted the anti-recovery budget,” he said.

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