Gov. Cuomo yesterday challenged the Albany establishment to accept “change” and pass a $133 billion bud get — the first in 15 years meant to actually shrink and not grow.
Cuomo presented his inaugural spending plan in powerful and remarkably simple terms, while standing before lawmakers — fully aware that what he told them would be heard by “the people.”
“Everybody’s in favor of change,” he said. “You ask people, ‘Do we need change?’ Yes, we need change.”
“What they really mean,” he said with a wide grin, “is, ‘you need to change’. ”
He told the tale of Albany, where people fiercely protect their own interests, which means nothing changes.
New York pays the price: in lost economic opportunity, and in hopes for a prosperous future.
Cuomo colorfully contrasted the traditional budget approach — “where Albany meets Enron” — to what he called “reality-based budgeting,” matching actual revenues and needs with spending.
His goal: To change the culture. Change the process. Make government workable and respectable, at last.
We certainly wish him luck.
To that end, Cuomo is rejecting the artificial formulas and statutory growth rates that boost expectations, distort debate, fuel spending hikes — and trigger enormous angst.
Under current law, he pointed out, state outlays for Medicaid and education would soar 13 percent this year.
How many New Yorkers can afford that kind of increase in taxes?
Not many, we’d guess.
Instead, Cuomo — nodding to the drop in revenues and federal funds — offered a more realistic 2 percent trim in Medicaid outlays and 7 percent for schools.
Likewise, he notes that the state’s overall tab has risen an average 5.7 percent annually for the past 10 years, while tax receipts rose just 3.8 percent.
You simply can’t illustrate New York’s fundamental fiscal imbalance more starkly than that.
Cuomo knows, of course, how hard it will be to fight the labor unions, trade groups and other special interests that push for ever more spending.
He predicted anguished cries of Armageddon on the Hudson: “The lobbyists are going to be running around the hallways like their hair is on fire,” he said.
Right on cue, they were.
“Slashing aid to our communities . . . and disproportionate cuts in state operations does not represent any new direction,” burbled Civil Service Employees Association President Danny Donohue.
“New York state cannot absorb these cuts,” said Healthcare Association of New York State President Daniel Sisto.
Even Mayor Bloomberg griped that Cuomo’s budget “does not treat New York City equitably.”
But (to take the governor’s advice) let’s be honest: Cuomo’s $133 billion marks a modest, bottom-line 2.7 percent rollback — and the first belt-tightening since the onset of the Great Recession.
And it still leaves state spending at some 10 percent more than in the 2009 budget year.
Draconian? Don’t be silly.
Cuomo also had an armful of options for schools and local governments to deal with lower aid — freezing wages, tapping reserves, having employees chip in more for health care . . .
But, again, his goal transcends budget-balancing; he was asking lawmakers, once and for all, to rescue Albany.
And, as he said explicitly, their own reputations.
A tall order, but worth striving for.