Gov. Cuomo presents his first budget to the Legislature today.
But yesterday, he moved to rede fine the terms of Albany’s annual budget debate — perhaps setting into motion events that could change forever the way New York spends.
For the better, it’s critical to note.
“The state’s budget process is a sham that mirrors the deceptive practices I fought to change in the private sector,” Cuomo declared.
He called the budget process “a metaphor of Albany dysfunction,” in which special-interest groups secretly “dominate the process,” programs grow “with no accountability and the taxpayers get the exorbitant bills.”
He’s right.
Here’s how it works:
Lawmakers each year quietly conspire with special-interest groups to write so-called “permanent law” formulas that drive Albany’s annual spending hikes.
The formulas are constructed with only passing reference to actual costs — even as they reflect in minute detail special-interest priorities.
Budget-busters like Medicaid and school spending were to have jumped by 13 percent this year, the actual inflation rate be damned — to the unions’ delight.
Proposed spending that falls short of these pre-ordained hikes will be called “budget cuts” — though actual spending always rises dramatically.
But maybe not this year.
Cuomo says that Albany’s presumed “$10 billion budget gap” shrinks to $1 billion if spending is held to the actual inflation rate.
Make no mistake: Albany is not in great shape fiscally; rather, the system is rigged to trick the public and rally support for as much spending as possible.
“Dictating numbers,” Cuomo says, “frames the dialogue around the budget and biases the political discourse.”
No more, he says. Starting today, Cuomo is turning the debate on its head — forcing the special interests to defend their gravy train, rather than leaving himself to argue for nonexistent “cuts.”
Clever.
And it’s critical that Cuomo prevail.
But it won’t be an easy fight.
The teachers unions, the health-care cartel and their pet legislators won’t roll over.
The reaction to today’s proposed budget will be instructive. Lawmakers and their paymasters will respond with the usual hyperbole, accusing Cuomo of heartlessly pushing massive “cuts.”
True enough, his budget will impose a difficult new regime on the state.
Billions in federal stimulus cash have been spent, and won’t be renewed.
The state workforce and local governments will be rocked.
But decades of formula-driven profligacy have led the state to the edge of the fiscal abyss. It must stop.
Cuomo is demanding an honest budget debate. Is that too much to ask?
Let it begin today.