The usual shenanigans

New York State’s annual budget-passing process is always a reliably abysmal mess. Fiscal blueprints get crammed with pages and pages of unrelated, complicated, unwise policy measures that are only fully understood days after. The coronavirus pandemic, despite changing everything else, didn’t change that.

When our ability to safely hold elections is in doubt, the state wedged into the budget a $100 million public campaign financing system full of loopholes, that gives unfair advantages to incumbents and existentially threatens New York’s minor parties. Why?

With deficits galore and hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers out of work, lawmakers expanded prevailing wage requirements starting in 2022, giving union-aligned wages to many more construction workers and driving up costs of building big projects. Seriously?

With crime down 20% and subway ridership off 87%, the Legislature and Gov. Cuomo pushed through a silly and impossible-to-implement plan to ban convicted sex offenders from riding mass transit.

Nor was this the time to fine New York City $15 million unless it moves an NYPD tow pound from Pier 76 by December. Really?

And with approximately 1,434,881 more important priorities, the governor pushed through a long-sought cosmetic change to the state seal, adding “E Pluribus Unum.”

We’re less concerned by inclusion of an already negotiated deal legalizing e-bikes and scooters, with appropriate speed limits and helmet requirements. Or by bail reform fixes that undo damage done a year ago.

But this was no time for barehanded, unsanitary sausage-making. There’s a raging contagion on the loose.