A late budget is justified
∙
In two weeks, the state fiscal year ends, with a fair chance a new budget for next year is not in place.
What? No, no, say it ain’t so. A late budget? Can New York survive?
If you believe what the governor has promoted since he took office that an on-time state budget equals success, a late budget, failure, well, that’s your problem. It’s not true.
Yes, a chronically late budget shows a general disregard and disrespect for justified public expectations and is a bad habit. And a late, late budget can stress local governments and school districts. But the occasional principled late budget can be better government by far than accepting the claptrap demands of a governor stamping his foot simply because he holds a better hand in the budget process. That’s thanks to a lousy Court of Appeals decision back in the Pataki days that allows the governor to fold public policy into the state’s prime fiscal document.
My learned colleague, the very smart and mostly wise former Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, tells us that taking the budget process into overtime is one of the few negotiating pressures the Legislature can bring to bear. The governor, after all, has more on his mind than a budget, and he’s boxed in by his own definition of success.
But beyond political maneuvering, better public policy comes out of discussion, transparency, give and take. Which can — and should — take time. We have not had enough of that in the Andrew Cuomo years. And in a year such as we are experiencing, with a fluid budget deficit and anticipated revenues, huge disparities in the ask and offer concerning big ticket items like school aid, a hostile Washington, Democrats now in control of both houses of the Legislature and just getting their footing, late is justified. Arguably an imperative to get it right.
As the ultimate authority on the subject, I give you the revered late and former Gov. Mario Cuomo, who said year after year during his tenure in office that a good budget always trumps an on-time budget.
His son, our current sitting governor, the one who for a while wished to be called Amazon but not so much anymore, is masterful in getting his way at budget crunch time. This is the year he needs to be checked.
Make no mistake, the most important event so far this legislative session happened elsewhere. It was Andrew Cuomo’s remarkable screw-up of the Amazon deal in Long Island City, which in fact raises far more questions than it answers about the state hideously inept and cosmically expensive economic development programs, not to mention his governing style. This would have been the biggest deal of his administration’s history. Failure
sent him on a fuming tirade. His rather arrogant — even for him — 100 days of channeling FDR to accomplish everything legislative under the sun that looked so rosy back in December appears to have turned post-amazon into something of a Napoleonic 100-day march into Russia. Not so much fun.
He has no one to blame but himself, although typically, that’s the last person he’ll blame. There were other factors pushing the shocking withdrawal by Amazon, from a weak commitment by the world leader in ecommerce, to a lack of support, and outright hostility, from players who could have been more helpful. But Cuomo was central in creating the chilling atmosphere that evolved into failure. At his insistence, he was in charge.
The critical decision that led us to the dumpster and eventually sent Amazon scurrying to northern Virginia was choosing to ignore the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Process, an exhaustive and very public review for such major developments. Instead, Cuomo and his partner, the hapless mayor of New York, used a state Urban Development Corporation process called a general project plan, which avoided the public altogether until the deal was done, which in turn elicited a very bad public reaction, not just from the left. A road map that had Cuomo’s stamp all over it. You might get away with it in Buffalo, but not in Queens.
That was on Valentine’s Day. Three days earlier, a Siena College poll already had Cuomo with his lowest ratings since he took office as governor. Downstaters from Long Island and the city were finally getting an eyeful of the Cuomo style on congestion pricing and the subway and MTA fixes, and they weren’t loving it.
Regrettably, we’ve had no polls since Amazon Gone, which seems odd, although we do have one tomorrow. For the poll-driven governor as well as the rest of us, polling is most helpful to show us who the public blames for the debacle.
With shrill disdain the governor blamed state Senate Democrats and the new Democratic left for sending the wrong message to Amazon about the state’s commitment. I’m not sure they did send Amazon the wrong message, or any other future large developer coming to New York. Actual message: include the public and make a better deal.
Besides, I suspect any message was really for the governor. But did he hear it?