WPCNR'S LATIMER ON THE LEGISLATURE. By Assemblyman George Latimer. March 19, 2005: The State Budget deadline is nearly at hand - April 1st. For twenty years, that deadline has been missed, and in some years, such as 2004, by quite a lot (late August). In the past few years, the media has raged, and citizens have become, quite properly, furious.
A few years ago, Assembly members and Senators stopped receiving paychecks on April 1st, until a budget was passed. Primaries and General Elections have been lost by a handful of members of this issue. But they weren't the answers. School Districts and Village governments, organizations and institutions, with springtime starts to their fiscal year, still suffer through unsurety and delays.
All of this is because, we are told, the dysfunction of New York State government - dysfunction that exceeds all other states.
And it is dysfunctional in many ways. But it is not just that alone; in fact, dysfunction may be the lesser part of the problem. The greater part may be assessed to a division in political thinking - disagreement - that in the highly charged national and local political climate of recent years has become partisan battling to the death.
The latter is nothing restricted to Albany. We turn on television and see Washington, D.C., and some (but thankfully, not all) of our local governments tied up in hyper-partisanship. Name-calling and negative attacks that make every issue fodder for the next campaign. We face a time when conservatives and progressives are each highly motivated, and unwilling to give an inch in philosophy. The extremes of both political parties dominate the primary selection process; moderates are the endangered species.
The results are battles between elected officials who represent extremely different views of the world, who categorize
each other's views in stark, negative terms. The once-hailed talent of compromise, the give-and-take of legislative work intrinsic in our Founding Fathers' insistence on checks and balances, has become a weakness in our current ideologically-driven politics. To compromise is to show insufficient commitment to absolute principle, and must, by
definition, represent a sell-out.
Our disagreements in Albany are real. The Assembly, the Senate and the Governor are working through very difficult financial matters every single year. This year, at stake are major cuts to the Medicaid program. What will those impacts be on Sound Shore Medical Center, on the heels of the failure of both St. Agnes and United Hospital. What will those cuts do to local nursing homes like Sarah Neuman (a $2.8 million loss)? This budget includes a battle over housing funds - and groups like the Washingtonville Housing Alliance, reeling from last year's cuts, faces more of the same this year. We are in disagreement as well on cuts to higher education, increases in tuition to SUNY, which just jumped up two years ago, and underfunding to school districts. These disagreements are what cause late budgets - again.
Upstate needs disagree with New York City needs and vice versa. The suburbs fall in-between. Republicans control the Senate for nearly 40 years, and the Democrats control the Assembly for 30 years - the longest run of split control in the U.S. by far. Is it any wonder we also have late budgets? It must be said: Each chamber, and the Governor, have very different interests and attitudes they defend.
Some of the dysfunction has been reduced in 2005. Newly constituted Joint Budget Committees have been meeting, well in advance of the deadline, and making progress, outside of the "room with three men". Rank and file in both parties and both chambers are being heard, if not heeded. But we appear to be heading for yet the 21st late budget in two weeks - even with the improved procedures.
We need more reform in our legislative and Gubernatorial system. My commitment is to continue to push for those structural changes.
Even more, we need a spirit of compromise, beginning with the citizens among us, who will recognize and reward those who are willing to find common ground at the cost of ideological purity. And we need to reject the absolutism of those so convinced they are right, and that everyone else is wrong, that deadlines never matter.
March 19, 2005
