According to a Siena College poll release today, ” Nearly half of New Yorkers give the State Legislature an “F” for its work on the state budget this year, while about one-quarter say Governor David Paterson deserves a failing grade, according to a Siena College poll of registered New York voters released today. The Governor is supported by about half of voters for his vetoes of legislative member items, but strongly opposed on his veto of additional education spending.

Over the last month, there was little change in the general election match-ups for Governor, both United States Senate seats and State Comptroller. The Democratic candidates for each of those positions maintain comfortable leads over their potential Republican opponents with less than 16 weeks until Election Day. With less than two months until Primary Day, Rick Lazio maintains a two-to-one lead over Carl Paladino among Republicans, while two-thirds of Republicans still have no choice among the candidates in primaries for both Senate seats.

Moderate Support for Gov’s Member Item Vetoes; Stronger Opposition for His Education Veto

“A majority of men, Republicans, downstate suburbanites, and older voters support the Governor’s vetoing of member items in the budget, as do a plurality – 49% – of all voters, however a sizable minority of 37 percent oppose those vetoes, including a plurality of younger voters and African Americans,” Greenberg said. “His veto of the additional school aid funding added to the budget by the Legislature was opposed by a majority of statewide voters, 58-38 percent, and by a majority of voters from every party and every region of the state.
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To read more click here.

In a Times Union editorial, the paper points out all the taxes that the legislature has put in place this year. Taxing us a nickel and a dime at a time while not making the reforms that they say we need to avoid future deficits.

“With New Yorkers just trying to keep track of all the ways the state Legislature is coming up with to get more money from them, citizens might be forgiven for forgetting to thank their lawmakers for not raising taxes.

That’s right, New Yorkers, lost in the confusion is this one bit of clarity: The Legislature isn’t raising income taxes. Yet.

This no new taxes claim, surely coming to a re-election campaign near you this fall, is, of course, utterly bogus, given all the things we’ll be busy paying for. But such is the political nonsense that passes for government in New York. Undoubtedly, lawmakers, all of whose terms expire at the end of this year, are already working on speeches that go something like this:

“We didn’t raise taxes on the poor or middle class.” Not unless you count the $330 million they plan to raise by taxing clothing sales under $110. But if we’re splitting hairs, this can’t really be called a new tax, since it was in place once before, and it’s only coming back on a temporary basis…

“We didn’t raises taxes on businesses.” Businesses will be paying more — $100 million this year and an estimated $1.4 billion over the next three years — under a plan to defer things like the investment tax credit. But it’s not an increase, mind you, just a deferral.

“We helped lower school taxes.” True again, although it will require $600 million of tax money to do it. That’s how much the Legislature wants to put back in the budget for school aid. The extra aid will come with conditions: The neediest districts will be able to use the money for education or property tax relief; average need districts will have to use half the money for tax relief, and low-need districts would have to give all the money to taxpayers.”

To read more click here.

According to a Quinnipiac poll release yesterday - “New York State government is dysfunctional, 83 percent of voters say, the highest number ever measured in the state, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

A total of 80 percent of New York State voters are “somewhat dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied” with the way things are going in the state, also the highest dissatisfaction ever in New York, the independent Quinnipiac University poll finds.

New York State voters disapprove 76 - 16 percent of the way the State Legislature is doing its job, the highest disapproval ever recorded for this group.

To clean house in Albany, all New York State senators, even their own local senator, should be voted out of office this November, voters say 51 - 36 percent. Voters say 50 - 34 percent that State Assembly members, even their own representative, should go, too.

“New Yorkers are fed up with Albany. The resentment is bigger than we’ve ever measured. Just about half think that the whole Legislature should be voted out of office - even their own state senator and Assembly member,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. ”

To read more of the poll results click here.

Tell Governor Paterson and the State Legislature “Don’t Defer Tax Credits”

Businesses will pay $750 million more in state taxes over the next two years under the Governor’s proposal to defer 50 percent of business tax credits. This comes at a time when New York businesses are struggling to stay competitive and keep New Yorkers working and our leaders in Albany should be acting to improve the state’s economic climate.

This proposal would erode key economic development incentives, such as the investment tax credit, Empire Zone credits, brownfield redevelopment credits and others. This proposal affects tax incentives already earned by businesses for investments they have already made in New York State. It says to businesses that economic development incentives offered by New York cannot be counted on.

Tell Governor Paterson and state legislators they must keep the state’s promise to provide these tax credits. Send them a message now click here.

Brendan Scott of the New York Post writes - “Lawmakers are pushing another big giveaway for the state’s powerful trial lawyers in the form of legislation to ban health-care providers from interviewing some witnesses in malpractice cases, The Post has learned.

The long-dormant bill was “greased to move” as soon as today despite objections from doctors, hospitals and health-care workers, said one source familiar with negotiations.

The proposal stirs to life just two days after The Post revealed Gov. Paterson was planning to hike by as much as 50 percent the fees attorneys can collect on medical-malpractice awards.

To read more click here.

The State Legislature’s skittishness and unwilling-to-make-the-hard-choices state in the state budget process is the subject of a Journal News editorial.

“With election season right around the corner, the skittish and unwilling-to-make-the-hard-choices state Legislature got a gift from Gov. David Paterson: He presented lawmakers with a do-or-die, one-week budget “extender” that included $775 million in health-care cuts. Because budget extenders — appropriations to keep state offices open in the absence of a formal budget — are emergency measures not open to the usual negotiations, legislators had to vote to accept the bill and the cuts, or vote to shut down the government.

It was an easy out and they took it, grumbling about gubernatorial blackmail even as they voted late Monday to accept the budget extender, cuts included. When the health-care industry, which held noisy protests before the vote in Albany, looks to target lawmakers in November, the lawmakers can throw up their hands and say, “We had no choice!” And it will be true. But that is so only because they have steadfastly refused to make any hard decisions to address the state’s $9.2 billion budget gap for 2010-11. The budget was due on April 1. The government limps along, sustained by a series of budget extenders.”

To read more click here.

The Times Union provides an editorial that looks closely at the “transparent, self-serving nonsense,” and the “abdication of responsibility” by the Legislature in the current budget process.

“If you don’t like this editorial, don’t blame us. After all, if the Legislature can pass a budget while disavowing what it votes on, why can’t we all be off the hook for our actions?

That seems to be how lawmakers would like to go about getting one of the admittedly toughest budgets in recent memory done. Pass it, one piece at a time, while professing to be utterly opposed but backed into a corner by Governor Paterson.

There are signals, to be sure, that the Legislature and governor are moving closer to a budget deal. But it could take the better part of this month to finalize. Plenty of time, then, to pass much of the budget piecemeal and on the fly, and blame the governor each step of the way.

What transparent, self-serving nonsense. What an abdication of responsibility.”

To read more click here.

LoHud.com provides an editorial on the continued outrage by voters with the state legislature.

“One reason why the New York state Legislature runs as well as an old Dodge Dart, on blocks and rusting away in the driveway, is that local voters typically absolve their own representative of any blame, never mind that the collective is dysfunctional. But just maybe that is changing, as evidenced by events over the weekend in Mamaroneck, where public outrage finally, and mercifully, took center stage. Let’s hope it starts a trend — one featuring bullhorns instead of the proverbial pitchforks.”

To read more click here.

Will He or Won’t He?
Cuomo’s Fork in the Road

From New Yorker’s for Growth - “Andrew Cuomo is faced with a stark choice next month: He can demonstrate his commitment to fiscal and ethics reform by rejecting the Working Families Party line this year, or he will send a clear signal to taxpayers that it will be business as usual under a Cuomo Administration, fiscal reform group New Yorkers for Growth today said.

The WFP, which is currently being investigated by the US Attorney’s Office for serious allegations that it violated election and other laws, has offered Mr. Cuomo its line for governor, but the Attorney General has not yet publicly said whether he will accept it or not. (Wall Street Journal story on matter linked here.)

The WFP, which is closely allied with the now defunct ACORN, is widely seen as the driving force behind high-spending and high-tax policies in Albany.

“If Andrew Cuomo accepts the Working Families Party line it will tell voters all they need to know about the direction his administration would take,” said former Larchmont mayor and New Yorkers for Growth spokesman Liz Feld. “But if he rejects the Working Families Party, that will speak volumes about his candidacy, too. Twenty million New Yorkers will be watching to see what he does.”

New Yorkers for Growth has urged Attorney General Cuomo to investigate the WFP for months.

The Daily News reports - “Senate President Malcolm Smith ripped off an elderly Queens couple he’d promised to build a dream house for in a land deal under scrutiny by the FBI, the Daily News has learned.

Cora Wheeling, 70, and her husband, Eddie, 71, wound up with no home to show for the $88,200 they put down toward a split-level Smith claimed he’d build them.

They sued in 1998; Smith still owes them more than $60,000.

“I didn’t know he’s a rat,” an irate Cora Wheeling said. “I should have known better.”

The house was supposed to be part of a subdivision Smith was trying to build on 230th St. in Cambria Heights. That deal is at the center of an expanding federal probe, sources said”

To read more click here.