In his own words
-
- July
- 29
This is a transcript of what Gov. David Paterson said in his five-minute address. It took five minutes to recite the 772 words.My fellow New Yorkers,
Our state now faces increasingly harsh economic times. When I travel across the State I see communities suffering. Everywhere I go I meet people who are losing their jobs and their homes. I meet families forced to pay more for gasoline and for food, while their paychecks stay the same. Next winter some of these families will have to choose between heating their homes and feeding their children. The rising costs of health care mean that they can’t afford to get sick. The rising costs of education mean that parents can no longer prepare for their children to be in the work force. The damage on Wall Street is affecting all of our communities and its effects on our New York State’s finances are devastating.
When I took office, I was apprised that the New York State budget deficit for next year was $5 billion. I immediately ordered cuts to state spending, but the situation has gotten worse. Tomorrow I will submit a budget plan that places our deficit for next year at $6.4 billion – that is $1.4 billion higher than it was just a few short months ago. How could this happen? It’s simple. Costs are rising steadily, revenues are dropping dramatically.
In the beginning of May, our budget director projected our New York State deficit over the next three years at $21.5 billion – that was a record. But things have changed. That number has now erupted to $26.2 billion – a staggering 22 percent increase in less than 90 days.
In June of 2007, the 16 banks that pay the most on taxes to their profits remitted $173 million to our New York State Treasury. This June, just a month ago, they sent us $5 million—a 97 percent decrease. Our economic woes are so severe that I wanted to talk to you personally this evening about where we stand. The fact is: we confront harsh times. Let me be honest: this situation will get worse before it gets better.
But the time to act is now. We cannot waste any further opportunities. We can’t wait and hope that this problem will resolve itself. If we do, we will lose our opportunity to turn this situation around. These times call for action and today I promise you there will be action.
Today I am calling the legislature back for an emergency economic session on Tuesday, August 19. In the interim, my administration will confront the following issues: addressing the size of the state work force; further cuts to agency spending and generating proposals for public and private partnerships for our State assets.
When I meet with the legislature, we will work together to help New Yorkers cope with this crisis. We will continue working on a property tax cap to lighten the load for homeowners and we will find a way to curtail the rising costs of home heating next winter. I will do everything I can to make sure that New York’s families do not freeze when it gets cold. My message to the legislature is that next year’s budget process starts now.
New York’s families are already making the tough choices. Every time you fill up a tank of gas or go to the supermarket you are learning to do more with less. New Yorker’s are prioritizing spending every day. The lesser crowding of the New York State Thruway is an indication that too many of you have postponed holidays or canceled your vacations.
Now your government is going to follow your lead. We are going to end the legislators’ vacations and bring them back to Albany to reprioritize the way we manage New York State’s finances. For too long we have done less with more and paid more for less. Now government will do what families have done when their incomes have fallen – we will cut spending. Government will learn to do more with less.
But I can’t do it alone; I need all of your help. I’m asking for the State leaders in the public and private sector, in labor, those who serve in Washington, owners of business and others to join us in this great effort.
It is time for New York and other governments to cut up our credit cards. The era of buy now, pay later and later is over. The faster we address this crisis, the faster and stronger we will emerge from it. That is the path to a better and more prosperous New York.
I’d like to thank the networks for extending me this opportunity and all of you for watching and listening this evening. Good night.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 6:36 pm by Cara Matthews.
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I am happy to see this Governor make a concerted effort to show the State of New York, what has been nicely covered up. There is too much fraud, cover-ups in agency’s, agency that are not doing there jobs correctly, and the list of constant jabs just continues to go on. If you ask any body on any particular day if they have read of a company scheming, fraud, or participating in unfair practices, it is in ALL the news papers there are to print. So, these idiots get prosecuted, they will either go to jail, or have to relocate so no one goes knocking on their door, looking to for the shares money. These people are legal mafia. They are making it bad, and have no sense of how wide spread the problem is. It continues to go on, and people are literally stymied, where can you turn, when business are falsifying records, using there smarts to create accounts that don’t exist, money laundering the hard working people right out the nearest wash basin.
This spread of tough economic times is just a starter, the twist and turns that are going to become a major problem is in further criminal behavior, and spousal abuse, as the dollar continues to tighten, so will peoples tempers. Or maybe by some weird coincidence, people will realize that money goes so far, and the budget is best helped by keeping it. Regardless of companies that don’t know what they are doing, it brings back to mind when Donald Trump had his reality show, “You’re Fired”. The main idea was being able to build a company and figure out how you were going to solicit business. The people chosen were graduates of some of the finest colleges in the country, and yet when it came to common sense fell flat on their faces. Why? because you can’t tell people what to do, the difference is, you can ask.
Many business today are using people to do filler jobs, making phone calls to make more business, most people are too busy to do business over the phone, but who cares? Nobody, people hang up on telephone solicitors, whether it’s television adds, vacations, credit cards, then out sourcing and speaking to people speaking Swahili, is another fun thing, including health care, insurance, and mortgages, I can barely understand these things when it’s said in English, so to hear from someone who is speaking Swahili is a little bit more far fetched. We have just become too laxed, too ignoble, and instead of being the smart sufficient people we once were, who took pride in making it in the U.S. have learned that by making it overseas it is cheaper. We are all to blame for selling our own selves out, and now here we are with a huge deficit and at the least we are rewarded we are blessed with Governor who is willing to not make light of it, or make it go away. This man is only one person, after a long list of people who have learned conveniently to pass the buck, and hope the idiots aren’t paying too much attention, just pass the buck along, to yours and mine best, the tax payer. After all there is very little places to go when you are speaking about taxes. And that will go far, as it has. I hope this people heed this wake up call, and listen to what choices are being offered by a person who is not afraid of what people might think. People have had many services that are not what they seem to be, and the people that work with those services have learned to rake the system at the expense of innocent people. I am inspired by David Patterson and hope he will continue to help New Yorkers and other States to look and make adjustments until people get the sense that all this confusion is hurting the proud people of New York, and The U.S. if he is going to speak about problems, he might want to hopefully touch on illegals as well, since the problem cost indirectly and directly as well.
I fully support Governor Patterson on cutting state government spending. It’s about time. My only objection is he shouldn’t give corporate welfare to big companies who threaten to leave New York State as he did for one major company. This company made record profits this quarter but continues to send thousands of jobs overseas. Saving 1,000 jobs is a start. The Governor should make them save 5,000 jobs in NYS and/or enforce no more resource actions (layoffs)in NYS in order to get the big NYS tax incentive package.
WAKE UP New Yorker lawmakers!! It’s time that you get low salaries and NO pension just like the rest of us hard working, middle class NY’ers.