The agreement, five days before the March 31 budget deadline, offered the prospect of Albany’s first on-time budget in five years. If enacted by lawmakers, the deal would cut the state’s overall year-to-year spending for the first time in more than a decade.

Left out of the budget was the “Millionaire’s tax” which many Democrats supported, as well as an extension of rent regulations which are set to expire in June.  The budget also includes significant cuts to education and social services.

Advocates for increased school aid were livid over the deal, suggesting that Mr. Cuomo’s cuts — and his refusal to consider a “millionaires’ tax” to offset those cuts — would hurt students. “Governor Cuomo’s first budget makes heartlessly large cuts to our schools to finance tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, and students in poor and middle-class districts will lose the most educationally,” Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, said.

In the coming weeks MYD will offer more in-depth analysis of the budget and how it will affect New York City residents in particular. 

On a related note, on April 26th our Economic Issues Committee will present a Budget Trivia Night, which will both entertain and educate!  For more information, contact our Economic Issues Chair Zac, econ@gomyd.com.

We can only assume that there would be a much larger benefit to the New York Budget when Marriage Equality is Passed. A 2007 NYC Comptroller’s Report “Love Counts: The Economic Benefits of Marriage Equality for New York” estimates that legalizing gay marriage would:

add $142 million, on a net basis, to New York City’s economy during the three years following legislative approval. It would add about $184 million, on a net basis, in spending to the State’s economy.

The Economix blog makes the overall point I would have:

More recently, economic desperation has helped reshape how we think about the regulation of other social issues — including policies related to state-sanctioned gambling, marijuana, immigration and even prostitution.

Theoretically, our laws are supposed to be based on our sense of morality, and not mercenary interests, wherever you come down on social issues like same-sex marriage and gambling. But when push comes to shove, the issue facing many politicians is whether they can afford to restrict behaviors that some constituents may find  “immoral” but which happen to be quite lucrative.

Anyone more interested in this topic should check out the Chamber of Commerce’s The Economic Impact of Gay Marriage event.

Publicly, Cuomo has supported Paterson’s positions at key moments while not appearing to meddle. When the Legislature tried to replace school-aid cuts with tax increases, Cuomo spoke out forcefully on Paterson’s behalf at a press conference. Behind the scenes, Cuomo has been even more active. “Andrew’s mark is all over this budget,” a Democratic insider says. “He began a dialogue with Paterson about a month ago, and they’ve been having nearly daily conversations and Andrew talks a ton to Larry Schwartz,” Paterson’s chief of staff.

Paterson and Schwartz came up with a stroke of political genius—the lame-duck governor’s threats to shut down state government have enabled him to force weekly budget concessions from the Legislature. Cuomo has successfully bolstered their choices, from cuts to education spending to holding the line on most tax increases to fending off the temptation to add billions to the state’s deficit through Ravitch’s plan. Winning those battles now, by Paterson proxy, reduces the pain Cuomo will need to inflict should he get elected. The risk is that Cuomo has antagonized the Legislature six months before he’s sworn in. Last week, he declared that the Legislature was “dreaming” if it didn’t agree to a Medicaid-funding contingency plan and said the Legislature had “accomplished absolutely nothing” in their revisions to Paterson’s budget. “It’s classic Andrew,” says an Albany insider who likes Cuomo. “The fundamental points are accurate, but it’s going a little too far, it’s saying a little too much.”

Go ahead, click the link and edify yourself. Just stream the whole thing, it’s free – that’s what public broadcast is for.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/410/social-contract

The worst kept secret in state and city relations is we have given billions more to the State coffers than we receive back. We have essentially bailed out the entire state year after year. But now that we are in a recession and New York City is facing the brunt it, Albany has decided that there’s no better time to take more from us.  In Governor Paterson’s latest budget, there are more than $700 million dollars in cuts for New York City.

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg gave his preliminary budget for Fiscal Year 2011 (July 1^st, 2010 to June 30^th, 2011). It was a sobering account of what New Yorkers must face given the hurting economy and Albany’s shameless practice of taking more and more from the city.

Here are only some of the cuts New Yorkers will have to face:

• Proposed New York City Budget would be $63.6 billion.
• Teachers would receive a 2% raise on the first 70K of their salary (instead of the 4% original agreed on) or would 2,500 teachers would be laid off.
• Four pools will be closed and “pool season” is shortened by 2 weeks.
• A 24-hr Drop-In Homeless Center would be closed.
• 20 fire companies would be eliminated.
• 32 more schools would be without nurses
• The staff at the Administration for Children’s Services would need to take on greater caseloads.
• 934 layoffs would need to take place and more than 3,300 jobs lost through attrition would not be replaced (police, fire, sanitation and corrections would be exempt)