ALBANY — Gov. Paterson unleashed a veritable veto-palooza yesterday — slashing thousands of spending items from the Legislature’s $136 billion budget — even as Senate Democrats skipped town without passing a vital tax bill needed to finish off the spending plan.
The Democratic governor plowed all the way through a towering stack of paper to make about 4,700 vetoes during a series of marathon sessions in his Albany office. Helping him were a half-dozen aides seated in an assembly line to speed the painstaking process.
The daylong veto-fest was designed to follow through on Paterson’s vow to quash an estimated 6,900 spending provisions added to the budget by a defiant Legislature this week, including $600 million in school aid and thousands of legislative pet projects known as member items.
He’s expected to do the rest of his 2,200 vetoes this morning.
Paterson says the items, as well as a failure to address a potential $1 billion shortfall in Medicaid, left the budget between $400 million and $1.5 billion out of balance.
The legacy-minded governor orchestrated the event for maximum theatrics. Vetoes were arranged in a massive pile so cameras could capture their enormity. The governor’s office even posted a Webcam to broadcast the vetoing — a feature that more than one Capitol staffer likened to undersea video of the BP oil spill.
“In that big pile, you didn’t sneak in an auto loan or anything?” Paterson joked.
Earlier, Paterson brushed off talk of a compromise to restore the funding he was about to slash.
“I’m not negotiating with anybody,” Paterson said. “I’m a little busy right now. I don’t think I have time to negotiate.”
Meanwhile, chaos reigned upstairs after Senate Democratic leader John Sampson of Brooklyn declared the budget “done” and disbanded the Senate without voting on the $1 billion “revenue” bill needed to finish it off.
The move was intended to force Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) to compromise on a Paterson plan to allow state universities to set their own tuition rates. Sampson said the Senate will return “as soon as we reach some kind of resolution.”
Failure to pass the tax bill will have little short-term impact on the state. But it means that the 212 lawmakers can’t collect $4.1 million in back pay.
Assembly members who stayed in Albany to pass the legislation 88-56 last night fumed at their Senate colleagues.
“Did they go home because they’re tired of eating cheese and crackers?” said Assemblyman Jose Rivera (D-Bronx).
“Like E.T., I want to go home! I want to get paid!”