David A. Paterson: Paterson says state budget is timely, responsible
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When I took office, New York was on the road to fiscal ruin. For years, state government spent far beyond its means. Then, as Wall Street collapsed, our deficit increased by $15 billion. Overcoming this crisis would test our strength, our character and our judgment.
I am proud to say we are passing that test. Today, New York is on the road to fiscal recovery. With our 2009-2010 state budget, we have taken a giant leap toward addressing our state’s fiscal crisis. This is a major victory for everyday New Yorkers and their families.
These are hard times for New Yorkers. In the past 12 months, nearly 10,000 Western New Yorkers have lost their jobs. Every family is working harder, and cutting back, to make ends meet.
If state government failed to deal with its fiscal crisis, these problems facing everyday New Yorkers would have become much worse — as they did in New York City during its fiscal crisis in the 1970s, when public services were slashed, garbage went uncollected and crime soared.
But that didn’t happen. We addressed our problems honestly and candidly. We stood up to the special interests. We fought hard for everyday New Yorkers and their families. We held true to the principles of fiscal responsibility and cut spending. And together, we passed a timely, responsible budget.
We enacted $6.5 billion in recurring spending cuts — more than twice as much as any other budget in state history. That’s on top of the $3 billion in cuts we have made over the past year—again, by far the largest mid-year spending cuts in state history.
Overall, we held state spending flat. Only if you factor in federal stimulus money does total spending increase. And we put our state on a sound fiscal path by reducing our future budget gaps by 80 percent, from $60 billion to $11 billion.
The process may not have been perfect, but we finished the budget on time, avoiding the acrimony we’ve seen in other states. And we did it all without cutting critical public services. Instead, we cut excess spending in government. The special interests battled us every step of the way. But we stood up to them and fought for everyday New Yorkers. And we ended up winning $2.3 billion in cuts to inefficiency in our health care system, by far the most in state history.
Our budget does include tax increases on the wealthiest New Yorkers. But I only agreed to these increases after the deficit increased by $4.7 billion over the past five months, and after we won record spending cuts from the Legislature. Any more cuts would have hurt everyday New Yorkers. And we fought hard and succeeded in making it a temporary increase that will sunset after three years.
Not only is this budget fiscally responsible, it is also a blueprint for change and reform. It includes several initiatives that will make a difference in the lives of everyday New Yorkers during these tough economic times. For example, we created a higher education loan program that will provide $350 million in affordable student loans, opening the doors of college wider for 45,000 students in New York each year. And we reformed the Empire Zone program to strip it of its worst abuses and make it a more effective tool for creating jobs. In the months ahead, we will move forward with reforms that will make state government more accountable to taxpayers and improve the lives of New Yorkers and their families, from pension reform to mandate reform to government reform.
Together, we have taken a giant leap toward addressing the largest fiscal crisis the state has ever faced. This is a major victory for everyday New Yorkers and their families. After months of fiscal gloom, there is now a light at the end of the tunnel.
David A. Paterson is governor of New York
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