Politics on the Hudson

Tom Kirwan, always among the most outspoken state Assembly members, says the governor should “shut down this place’’ if lawmakers can’t pass a budget by April 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

Kirwan, R-Newburgh, Orange County, said if Gov. Spitzer wants to change Albany, he should not follow the path of past governors, who enacted a series of “emergency spending’’ bills to keep government operating on an interim basis while the budget stagnated.

“If it is not on time, the governor should shut the government down and make the Legislature stay in Albany around the clock until we do what we are getting paid to do,’’ Kirwan said in a news release.