Here’s some of Governor Paterson’s comments during an interview Friday with Gannett News Service. He’s holding a conference call later this morning to further discuss the special session.

On Senate Republicans’ request that he release his 2009-10 budget proposal in advance of Tuesday’s session:

“I’ve never heard of a governor who is trying to close one budget deficit and being asked to present his financial plan for next year, which I already moved up six weeks to try to accelerate the process. Now I’m being told to move it up 11 weeks. And I just don’t think that’s fair. And I already put my reductions on the table and nobody else has.”

On Senate Republicans’ reason for not taking action on state budget cuts:

“I get the impression that the Senate Republicans wake up every morning and think of the excuse of the day for why they are not taking action.”

On whether Senate Republicans are not acting as retribution for losing the majority on Election Day:

“If it is, I don’t know that to be the case, but if it is then it means that they put their personal politics in front of the quality of life for the people of the state of New York and maybe that’s why they lost, because people figured it out.”

On special-interest groups not agreeing to budget cuts:

“If these individuals want to watch the state become insolvent, if they want to see our credit rating reduced to junk status, if they want Washington to say ‘we were going to give you a fiscal stimulus package but you didn’t get your house in order, so forget you,’ it will be on their consciences not mine.”

On whether it will be a hit to his popularity if lawmakers don’t act Tuesday:

“Anyone that wants to assess this as a loss for me can do that if they feel like it. I think it’s a loss for the people of New York state.”

On whether he would raise taxes to close the state’s budget deficit:

“I have never ruled out taxes. But the problem is that when we taxed in 2003, and I voted for the tax and I was big advocate for it, the wind of the economy was at our backs. We were recovering.

“And we used tax to finish off the deficit. We don’t know how long this downturn in the economy is going to be. Once you tax, it’s a one shot. You have one shot to tax.
Why would we start with a tax and continue irrational spending? Why not curb the irrational spending first and if we get down to a few billions dollars and somebody wants to tax somebody to shut it off, we’ll think about it.”

On the wrong contention by some of the “Gang of Three” that he wants a Hispanic majority leader in January:

“What I said was it would be a great thing for New York if we had a New York City or New York statewide leader who was of Hispanic decent. I thought that would be tremendous. And they took that to mean that I’m supporting one of them for majority leader.”