New Budget. New Taxes. New Confusion.
Three men in a room got it done. The state budget is finished on schedule. Voting today and tomorrow.
Despite the funding crisis, spending is up 8.9% but plenty is still unknown.
Because details remained murky, it could not be determined last night whether the 2009-10 budget reduces spending to a sustainable level once the stimulus cash is gone in two years and with diminished revenue from Wall Street. In December, Paterson warned that school aid and the Medicaid program, which account for more than half of state expenditures, must be pared back. Yet, many of his proposed cuts aren’t in the new budget.
WHAT’S IN:
- Millionaires Tax
- Increased taxes on alcohol, utility bills, higher DMV fees
- STAR property tax exemptions for homeowners, no change
- Public employee contracts remain intact
- Bigger Better Bottle Bill
- Pork. Governor & legislators retain every dime of their “member item” money, $170 million
- Education funding is flat, health funding is down, but we don’t know the specifics yet
WHAT’S OUT:
- 8900 state employees who are being laid off
- Most of the “nuisance taxes” didn’t happen
- No wine sales in supermarkets. Sorry about that, Danny
- STAR rebate checks won’t be mailed this year
- Rockefeller Drug Laws — its long awaited repeal was tucked into the budget deal
WHAT WE DON’T KNOW YET:
Plenty! There is always lots that is buried below the surface in these huge budget bills. If you remember, it took months for us to understand some of what was included in the Governor’s original proposal.
Related posts:
The Governor’s proposed 10% increase in welfare benefits sailed through, too (he hopes to increase the total handout to 30% by 2012). This all happened while he simultaneously attacked public employees who actually WORK!
I had to laugh at the toothless Limbaugh hillbillies on the D&C website who were cheering the Gov. on as he went after CSEA and other unions for standing there ground on settled contracts. When I informed them that their hero was advocating this huge increase in welfare payments, you could hear the crickets in the background. They were so uninformed that they never saw or read the details of the governor’s entire budget package, which included these obscene increases for the idle.
Ok, Marc, let’s take a deep breath and look a little closer at this “HUGE INCREASE in welfare payments” you’re so upset about.
You talk like there’s this one monumental group of “idle” people who are lounging around, begging for handouts, ripping off the rest of us who work for a living. The reality is not that simplistic, so let’s be clear about WHO and WHAT we’re talking about.
First, the WHO. There are 3 groups of people who receive your so-called “welfare payments” out of the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance budget:
1) The elderly, blind & disabled - they receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
2) Households with dependent children - they receive Temporary Assistance (TA). There is no guarantee of benefits. There are income eligibility limits & work requirements (able-bodied adults in the home must be working or be actively seeking work, and there is a lifetime, cumulative benefit limit of 60 months — hence the name, “Temporary Assistance” — no matter what state you live in (i.e., if you use 10 months in Ohio and then move to New York, you only have 40 months left).
3) Households without children - eligible for Safety Net Assistance (SA). Same work requirements & time limits apply.
Half the $ actually comes from the Federal budget in the form of a block grant, which is then allocated by the State and transferred to the Counties; the other half is paid by the State and local governments.
In January of this year:
- 651,489 old, disabled or blind people received SSI benefits.
- 108,722 households with children received Temporary Assistance.
- 159,721 other households received Safety Net benefits.
So, putting aside the old people, the blind & the disabled, these “idle” hordes you’re so exorcised about amount to about 268,000 people, out of a total population of around 19 million. They are part of the working poor, those people who work the menial, low wage, temporary, non-union jobs (the ones mopping the bank floor at night).
Now for the “WHAT.”
As I understand it, apparently this is the 1st increase since 1990 - that’s right - the first increase in EIGHTEEN YEARS, Marc. Wait - it’s been nineteen years, really, since it’s 2009 now.
So, since the end of the Bush I Administration, and all through the Clinton and the Bush II years, the “welfare payment” you rant about has not changed, even though every other class of people in NYS have seen at least Cost of Living Allowance increases at regular intervals during the same period. Sorry, Marc, but I don’t see how a 10% increase is unreasonable or objectionable.
Particularly when you look closer at what that 10% increase means to a typical household.
Guess what: it turns out that additional 10% translates into about $29 per month.
Wow.
That $29 might help cover the increased cost of gas. Or a bus pass. Or a pair of cheap shoes.
It increases another 20% over 2 years, so by 2012, the total increase will amount to about $96/month, or $20-25/week.
So a family that gets $291 a month now would end up with a whopping $387/month three years from now.
Honestly, Marc, that’s … not much.
So what’s your point?
That 8.9% increase might be bogus. Better double check that. That’s the number coming out of the Chamber of Commerce types and the Republicans and I smell funny math.
If I understand it correctly, that 8.9% increase reflects the $ put back into the budget *after* the Federal stimulus $ was signed into law.
The Governor’s original budget cut a lot of the $ for Counties, Cities & School Districts, for example. Once the stim package was a sure thing, the money was put back into the budget.
The overall budget looks like an increase from last year, but the money is coming from the Feds, rather than from NYS tax revenues.
I think you’re right to be wary of the Chamber of Congresscritters.
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