Gov. Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg each unloaded yesterday on Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch’s plan to use borrowed funds to close part of the state’s $9 billion deficit.
“Deficit borrowing is what got us into this mess,” Paterson said curtly at a Brooklyn town-hall meeting when asked about a soon-to-be unveiled plan from Ravitch, who is widely viewed as a fiscal expert.
“We borrowed in deficit without any understanding of how to pay the money back. We squandered surpluses, we papered over deficits and we recklessly infused resources from borrowing when we were living beyond the margin of our means,” continued Paterson, describing past budget practices.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg, at a separate press stop in the city, said that when “you borrow money to get through these times you postpone the pain.
“And given that the following year you have a bigger deficit and the year after you have projected even bigger deficit, I just don’t understand how that would really work,” Bloomberg continued.
Bloomberg, suggesting his own advice to Paterson and Ravitch, said to manage the state’s severe fiscal problems, “You have to reduce your expenses and raise your revenue or raise your revenue or do a combination of both.”
At another point a clearly frustrated Bloomberg said, “They just can’t keep spending money they don’t have.”
Ravitch picked up some support from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a liberal Manhattan Democrat, who has been seeking to avoid the massive spending cuts needed to balance the new budget.
“If there’s a way to deal with the issues that includes borrowing on a limited basis, we would examine such a proposal,” Silver said
Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau,) whose Republican senators are believed to possess a veto over budget matters in a narrowly divided house, is on record opposing any plan to borrow funds to close a budget deficit.
Additional reporting by David Seifman at City Hall.