Written by Michael Moran on March 10, 2010 – 10:42 am
The Manhattan Institute’s Nicole Gelina’s writes in a New York Post opinion column that the fiscal crisis in Greece due to excessive borrowing has lessons for New York.
She writes: “Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou came to Washington yesterday to ask President Obama to help save his nation from speculators. In other words, he wants America to help him shoot the messenger.
Sorry, Greece is no innocent victim: It helped get itself into a mess — by exploiting the bailout mentality.
New Yorkers should pay special heed — because we could be in the same boat.”
The Post’s editorial also looks at this issue stating: “Don’t blame Greece for its financial woes, Prime Minister George Papandreou said yesterday after meeting with President Obama.
Blame “speculators.”
Which got us wondering: Just whom will Albany blame when its Day of Reckoning arrives?
With tens of billions of dollars in shortfalls projected for the coming years, that day is fast approaching. And yet, a plan Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch will announce today — which reportedly includes some borrowing to deal with the situation — may put New York in the same sinking boat as Greece.
As Nicole Gelinas explains on the previous page, Athens has been flirting with bankruptcy because it kept shelling out cash — for lavish public-employee perks and such — as if it had an endless supply. And investors kept lending.
Now that they’ve finally balked, Greece has had to struggle mightily to stay afloat.
New York, too, has long been spending more than it collects in taxes, financing the shortfall with IOUs. That’s like taking out a mortgage to pay grocery bills.”