New York’s Fiscal Crisis

[soros75]

Dopo Dubai adesso tocca allo stato di NY ritardare i pagamenti.

Il governatore dello stato, tale David Paterson, piuttosto che fare un debito per pagare i debiti ha deciso di posticiparne il pagamento.

Gov. David Paterson of New York announced this week that the state will have to delay $750 million in scheduled payments to schools and local governments. It is a drastic step, but the governor, rightly, argues that he had no alternative. It was either that or watch the state slip $1 billion into the red.

Even to borrow that money, the governor and legislative leaders would have to declare a fiscal emergency before they could seek an expensive short-term loan. The Legislature, in denial, is refusing to do the hard work that’s needed.

Mr. Paterson has gone for a delay in the hopes that tax revenues next month will be a little higher than projected. There is no guarantee that Wall Street bonuses or first signs of recovery will bring in enough cash to make it through to the end of the fiscal year in March.

Unless there are serious changes in the way New York spends and raises money, the state could be facing a $10 billion deficit next year.

New York is not alone in facing tough times. But for years, New York’s Legislature has been spending beyond its means. The recession has made matters far worse. Mr. Paterson, who took office just as Bear Stearns collapsed in 2008, has been warning of calamity ever since. The Legislature has stubbornly refused to listen.

Last month, the governor called lawmakers back to Albany to fill a $3.2 billion gap in this year’s budget of $132 billion. The governor proposed painful cuts: including $113 million from the New York City-area public transit budget; $686 million in school funds, or about 3 percent per district with even larger cuts for wealthier districts; $470 million from health care spending.

The Democratic-majority Legislature balked. Lawmakers decreed there would be no midyear cuts in school budgets, not even for wealthy districts. Although they did improve the pension structure, legislators protected other programs like health care and shielded state workers from furloughs or layoffs.

They finally made some cuts, including a larger swipe at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, but mostly they drained other savings accounts and used some of the federal stimulus dollars that were supposed to be saved for next year.

Even then, they only came up with $2.7 billion — and were $500 million short. That left Governor Paterson no choice but to delay payments to schools cities and towns. Some of these schools have rainy-day funds, but Mr. Paterson should try to limit cuts for the poorer areas. Communities will have no choice but to pare down spending.

Legislative leaders — from both parties — need to wake up to the harsh reality. When the stimulus money is gone there will be no cushion, and there is no hidden cache of funds about to be discovered.

There is no chance of balancing next year’s budget as required by law unless they are finally willing to make deep cuts, even in favorite programs, personal items to districts and especially those items backed by the state’s most powerful education unions, and health care and business lobbyists. At this point, there is no other choice.

Long Island's Fortress Mentality

There may be some dire situation in which state senators from Long Island will stop insisting that their disproportionate share of state school aid must not be cut, delayed or in any way changed. Don’t count on it.

Despite the serious disaster that has hit the state’s budget, the Long Island delegation has been behaving as it always has. They have opposed Gov. David Paterson’s repeated efforts to get New York’s finances in order, including his latest tactic of delaying $750 million in December payments, including aid to schools, to avoid insolvency this year. The naysayers include the usual Republican bloc, along with two newcomer Democrats with dicey re-election hopes, Craig Johnson and Brian Foley.

Greedy parochialism is old news in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Turn back to any year — say, 1988, when this page was deploring how “a pork-minded bloc of Republican senators” known as “the Long Island Eight,” led by Ralph J. Marino of Muttontown, was holding a budget hostage over aid to local school districts.

The state’s convoluted school-aid formulas have long favored rich Long Island schools at the expense of those in New York City and other districts where people are poor and needs are great. Long Island has some of the highest-spending districts and best-paid superintendents in the country. It’s home to a district — Roslyn — where administrators, employees and their families stole millions of dollars for years, and nobody noticed.

This is not to say that Long Islanders are not feeling financial pain. They pay some of the highest property taxes in the country, and Mr. Johnson and Mr. Foley have good reason to be afraid of wrathful voters, who just fired the able Nassau County executive, Thomas Suozzi, because they were sick of paying high taxes.

But Long Islanders have proudly embraced their ever-more-expensive schools for years, approving ever-higher budgets and ever-soaring official salaries. For years they have benefited from the powerful bloc voting of their Senate delegation. It’s ridiculous to think their schools can’t possibly tap rainy-day funds or find savings on an island where superintendents routinely make six figures, where some rich villages give students two identical textbooks — one for home and one for school — and where the sports and arts and video and language programs are the envy of the nation.

New York is in dire straits, the governor is trying to cope and Long Island’s schools are touchable.

[ramirez]

equiparare creditori privati di tutto il mondo
ad enti pubblici sotto la propria giurisdizione
alla stessa stregua dovresti aprire un 3d
per i ritardati pagamenti dello Stato italiano
ai propri creditori..

[soros75]

Originalmente inviato da ramirez

equiparare creditori privati di tutto il mondo
ad enti pubblici sotto la propria giurisdizione
alla stessa stregua dovresti aprire un 3d
per i ritardati pagamenti dello Stato italiano
ai propri creditori..

In parte hai ragione, ma il succo del discorso non cambia.

[9999]

Non c'e' solo New York.
Avevo letto su elitetrader che anche lo stato della California ha un deficit enorme, e alcune contee (in Arizona, se ricordo bene) sono praticamente in bancarotta.
Le tasse sull'immobiliare rappresentavano una grossa fetta dei loro proventi, e con questa crisi son rimasti tutti a secco.