A tough-talking Gov. Cuomo, battling a $10 billion deficit and lawmakers determined to hike taxes and spending, dramatically vowed over the weekend: “It’s now or never to end the state’s dysfunction and the special-interest payoffs.”
His comments came during private budget talks with top aides, a source close to the governor said.
“If legislators think they are going to hijack the budget and add more spending then [Cuomo] will go it alone,” said a source familiar with Cuomo’s comments.
“The governor really doesn’t care whether the budget is done amicably with the Legislature or not,” the source continued.
“He would like to do the budget amicably, but it must be done right.”
With less than three weeks to go before the April 1 start of the new fiscal year, Cuomo threatened to use his enormous court-granted powers over the budget process to block legislative raids on the treasury.
He vowed to “adopt a budget by using extenders, if that’s necessary,” a procedure under which lawmakers face the choice of shutting down the state or adopting a one-week extender that keeps the state functioning but also includes most of the governor’s own austere budget measures.
The source said Cuomo is convinced he has the upper hand in a battle because of the sweeping 2004 Pataki vs. Silver decision in the Court of Appeals, which held the Legislature can’t rewrite a governor’s budget, but can only increase or decrease spending amounts — or refuse to act on it at all.
If the Legislature refuses to act, state government shuts down, with negative political consequences for lawmakers.
Increases in spending can be vetoed by the governor, but an override is deemed highly unlikely.
“These final days leading up to the budget are going to define Gov. Cuomo’s entire term in office, and I can assure you he’s not going to sit back and let himself be defined by a spendthrift, dysfunctional, scandal-scarred, national embarrassment of a Legislature,” said a second source close to Cuomo.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), who wants higher taxes and nearly $1 billion in extra spending, and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau), who wants some $400 million more in spending, plan to pass their own alternatives to Cuomo’s budget plan later this week.
Cuomo will then hold a series of private meetings with the two leaders in hopes of reaching a final budget accord.
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While Silver and Skelos are at odds over what they’d like to add to Cuomo’s budget, they do agree on one thing: no “public leaders meetings.”
The meetings, which were held occasionally by Govs. George Pataki, Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson, all turned into fiascoes of name-calling and finger-pointing that highlighted the state’s political dysfunction and did nothing to advance budget agreements.
Silver and Skelos have both appealed to Cuomo not to hold those meetings, and so far, he’s agreed.