Well, i do have some good news to report today. It would seem that late yesterday a deal was struck, in the traditional way (3 men in a room), between the Assmebly, the Senate, and the Governor on how to address the fiscal crisis New York is in.
The 3 leaders met at the Governors mansion in albany last night and decided that 2.9 million would be cut from the deficit. Cuts would come from health care and the plan would also create a tax amnesty plan that is anticipated to be valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Go here for the article by the times union.
But lets get to the fun stuff, promptly after the agreement was reached Paterson released a statement that the agreement did not go far enough, and that he alone was standing up for what the people of the state of New York need.
Now i do not contest the idea that the Speaker of the Assembly and the Senate Conferance Leader, Sheldon Silver and John Sampson, do NOT have the peoples best interests at heart. Why you ask, because it took them forever and day to do anything about a looming budget problem that they have known about for the better part of a year!
However, Paterson has made the mistake of criticizing forward movement. While movement should be made more quickly, and more efficiantly, progress should not be criticized. The attempt at helping the state move forward was made and that should be applauded, especially when the progress made is late in the making and hard to come by.
I do not want to make this sound like i am agreeing with the leaders of the legislature however. The legislature continues to be a puppet of the leaders and drag its feet on everything that needs to be done due to fear of political pressure. Man up and make the necessary change for the state!
