New York state is in fiscal crisis — but that’s just too easy to say. It rolls off the tongue far too easily and sounds far less dire than the situation actually is. We have to admit it to ourselves and keep repeating it every day — New York state government leadership is morally and intellectually bankrupt and it cannot fix itself. Voters are the only people who can fix this situation.
The state has run up big deficits before and even been to the brink of bankruptcy in 1977. But that was a different time, a time when borrowing wasn’t such an accepted and even expected thing for government. A time before public authority creation became an avenue for vast off-budget spending. Today, the act of a government living off of credit is business-as-usual and it’s catching up to our governments like a huge tsunami wave that even if we know it’s on its way, we are helpless to stop.
As jaded as we can be here in Western New York — we’ve seen and lived with the worst government representation of any location in the entire country — I’ve got to admit I never saw this coming. The state of New York just suggested a Financial Review Board be created to watch over itself.
This is the “new” public authority, the new blanket to pull up over their heads when they are scared the public is hiding under their bed.
Criminally disgraced former state Comptroller Alan Hevesi likened control boards to “parental supervision” when calling for Erie County to be placed under a control board. Ostensibly Hevesi was saying the state government was the “parent.” So, this would be a parent saying that we need another parent to supervise us?
Since Hevesi made this into some familial set of comparisons, what would that equate to when the parents need parental supervision? Seems to me it would equate to legally removing the parents from the equation and placing the kids in a foster parent situation. Sounds to me like that means those in state office simply need to be removed and replaced. But in this case we don’t take this before a court and ask a judge to do this; you and I are the only ones that have the power to make this decision to remove the parents. The vote on this takes place Nov. 2 this year.
Two things leap off the page of this newest announcement by the state that they want a control board. First is that control boards exist to borrow money when a government is up against a cap and can no longer borrow themselves. The second is the messenger of this idea: Richard Ravitch.
If all you knew about the city of Buffalo’s financial situation was what you saw in the media or heard from the mayor and council every year, you would be absolutely certain the city was broke. But the fact is that Buffalo has not had a deficit in at least 15 years. In fact, they run a surplus every year.
During this time of budget surpluses, the city was placed under the supervision of a control board. Why? Because Buffalo had reached its borrowing threshold — it could no longer borrow money as easily as it had in the past. In essence, the credit card company was calling and saying you’re over your limit. The only way Buffalo could pay the interest on its debt and continue to borrow was to get another credit card — and that credit card was a control board. The state appointed bankers to run the control board, and the bankers refinanced the city debt, took a hefty profit, and opened new lines of credit.
Nobody in state government can criticize Wall Street greed. There is simply no shame among state leadership.
As for Ravitch — who’s he again? To the best of anyone’s knowledge, our non-elected lieutenant governor — who was appointed only to allow the state Senate to meet — has never sent out a press release. Now he’s proposing budget solutions? It seems like the crime syndicate that runs state government is preparing the public for the time when Ravitch is our new governor, filling out the term of David Paterson, who was filling out the term of Elliot Spitzer. If not that, then it’s the admission that anything ever proposed by our governor or either legislative leader lacks any shred of credibility, and must be shrouded in proposals from “the new guy” nobody has ever heard of.
This proposal is yet another indication that state officials cannot control their addiction to spending money.
Tom Christy is founder of FAIR Government, a foundation dealing with local government issues. Visit www.fair-government.org. Contact him at aim1986@mac.com.
