Paterson Won’t Use Veto Pen
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- April
- 16
Despite his calls for state fiscal restraint, Gov. David Paterson will not pull out the veto pen on the recently approved 2008-09 state budget.
Aides said Wednesday that the Democratic governor is content with the three-way agreement he made with the Legislature last week, when lawmakers adopted a $121.7 billion budget that increases state spending by nearly 5 percent.
Paterson, who inherited the budget a month ago from disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, has warned that state spending is too high in the face of a national recession. Yet he argued that he preferred getting a budget done close to the April 1 deadline instead of trying to battle lawmakers to cut spending.
The budget, which was adopted nine days late, adds nearly $6 billion in new spending, including a record $1.7 billion in additional aid to schools.
But Paterson warned in recent days that he’ll look to cut the 2009-10 budget by 5 to 10 percent from the current spending level. The state’s fiscal year runs from April 1 to March 31.
“We are going to have to address what has been mismanagement and at times recklessness in the assembling of our budget,” Paterson told the Transit Workers Union during a speech this week.
“We are going to have to make some serious cutbacks. We are going to have to address these issues to save our economy. But we cannot do it by balancing it on the backs of individuals who go to work every day.”
He has until Wednesday to make any line-item vetoes to increases in spending made by the state Legislature.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 4:46 pm by Joseph Spector.
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For some reason, or maybe for ten reasons, I don’t believe a word Paterson says. Governor Bruno? Could happen. Not that he’s any good, either.
“We cannot…balance the budget…by balancing it on the backs of people who go to work every day. Then, whose back will bear the burden of this onerous weight? The unemployed? The retired seniors? The feebleminded? The legislators? These are the only people I can think of who don’t go to work every day. How in hell does he, and others up there, get away with making these vacant, palpably ridiculous statements?
this budget will fall apart in three months anyway since the economic engine that drives ny is sputtering.