"We are unwilling to do midyear cuts to public education."
That in essence, says New York State Senator Kevin Parker of Brooklyn (D-WF-District 21), is at the heart of an impasse, a crucial barrier preventing the Democrat-controlled State Senate in Albany and David Paterson, New York's governor and chief executive, from reaching agreement on a $2 billion deficit reduction package needed to prevent the state from running out of cash before the end of the financial year, while, at the same time, protecting New York's credit rating.
"The reality is that as we stand here now, of the $3 billion the Governor is asking us to cut from the budget, literally 90 percent of it we agree with," Parker told the Carib News as the impasse makes headlines across the state, leaving people asking what's going on in Albany and what may happen next with the state's finances.
"We are at an impasse literarily over $200 million, which to the average person is a lot of money, but in Albany terms $200 million is not an insurmountable gap," Parker added. "It's a small amount of money that we disagree on. We are certainly willing to give the Governor $200 million more with the cuts, a set of cuts that are real current. The problem is that we are unwilling to cut public education spending. We think as a legislature, both the Senate and the Assembly, that mid-year cuts would represent a disinvestment in our children and in our future. We certainly don't want to take dollars out of classrooms in the middle of the year and enact a policy that would also raise property taxes in places like Nassau and Suffolk Counties and Rockland where they are already paying some of the highest property taxes in the nation."
In short, Parker, a Brooklyn Democrat disagrees with a few of the proposals put on the table by a governor of his Democratic Party.
In the meantime though, as the policy fight over the budget continues, Paterson has decided to use his executive authority to prevent the state from running out of cash.
He has ordered the State Division of Budget to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts without waiting for an agreement by the legislature to bridge the deficit gap.
"I have given the legislature more than enough time to join with me to address this [budget] crisis," Paterson said in a statement. "If the legislature wouldn't stand up for the people of New York because they're worried about the next election, then I will do so on my own. That is why I am directing the Division of Budget to reduce payments to prevent our state from running out of cash by this fiscal year. This action will keep New York State solvent and ensure that we have enough money to make it through the year."
For his part, Parker insists any cuts to health care would be detrimental to patients as well as the state's fiscal picture.
"When you are talking about health care cuts in particular those dollars are matched by federal dollars. So for every dollar you take away some state aid, we give away two or three dollars in federal aid," Parker pointed out. "The cuts the Governor is suggesting would actually cost the state $750 million in federal money. We think that's the wrong way to go at a time when we need every dollar that is available to us."
