Published: August 24, 2008 12:38 am            

OUR VIEW: New York budget: A bumpy ride

“It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

That’s the sober financial assessment made by Gov. David Paterson following the state Legislature’s approval last week of more than $1 billion in budget cuts over two years. The fact that lawmakers were able to move on the matter quickly was both encouraging and disappointing at the same time.

The encouragement came in the fact that it happened at all. Longtime Albany watchers were skeptical that the legislators would take the governor seriously; that they would believe that the budget is deep in the red and that quick, decisive action was needed.

And the fact that it happened in an election year simply underscored the urgency of the budget crisis. Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith, a fellow Democrat, said it was unprecedented for a governor to bring lawmakers back in an election year to cut spending. “This was not easy,” he said.

It was not easy because Albany has a hard time saying no to anybody. When the legislators are looking for your votes, it’s even tougher to play Scrooge. But with a $5.4 billion budget deficit still looming next year, assemblymen and senators felt they had little choice.

The disappointment comes when one takes a long view of the situation. It’s a shame that it took what amounts to an emergency of this nature for lawmakers to do the right thing.

And it’s also disappointing to realize that it was largely those same lawmakers who let the situation get this bad in the first place. Sure, they’ll blame a slowing economy and the declining tax revenue that goes with it. But if the folks in Albany were responsible fiscal stewards instead of the proverbial drunken sailors, spending would have never gotten out of control. State government would have been able to weather the storm.

This is yet another example of the state lurching from crisis to crisis. And until the public can put people in the executive and legislative branches who can balance a checkbook and a budget to handle their financial affairs, this type of management by crisis is bound to continue.

        

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