{"id":2446,"date":"2010-08-03T23:13:39","date_gmt":"2010-08-04T03:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2446"},"modified":"2010-08-03T23:21:17","modified_gmt":"2010-08-04T03:21:17","slug":"democrats-in-state-senate-pass-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/08\/03\/democrats-in-state-senate-pass-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats in state Senate pass budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

The budget log jam in Albany has ended.<\/p>\n

Senate Democrats ended months of debate and stand offs to approve a revenue bill, the last piece of New York State’s spending plan. Gov. David Paterson has indicated his support for the legislation.<\/p>\n

The numbers:<\/p>\n

Total budget: $136 billion<\/p>\n

New taxes: (depends on who’s talking)<\/p>\n

The Albany Times-Union: $800 million<\/p>\n

The New York Times: $1 billion<\/p>\n

Republican state Senator John DeFrancisco: $1.8 to 2 billion<\/p>\n

Republican Senate minority leader Dean Skelos: $4 billion<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Environmental Protection Fund cut: $79 million and moratorium on land acquisition (source: www.budget.state.ny.us<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Community College Base Aid cut: $56 million (source: www.budget.state.ny.us)<\/p>\n

Reinstating sales tax on new clothing and shoes that cost less than $110 (source: NYT)<\/p>\n

Even though this tax won’t be in effect until after October 1st – to spare back-to-school shoppers – it’s expected to bring in $330 million (source: NYT)<\/p>\n

The final vote Tuesday night was cast just before 8:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

32 Democrats voted yes<\/p>\n

28 Republicans voted no<\/p>\n

The budget was 125 days late – more than four months<\/p>\n

It is the second latest budget in New York State history<\/p>\n

Some reporting from across the state:<\/p>\n

From the Associated Press:<\/p>\n

In the end, Democratic Senator William Stachowski of Buffalo, who withheld his budget vote since June to force action on a proposal to empower state universities, changed his mind.<\/p>\n

Instead of a law, the proposal became a nonbinding “framework” as negotiations continue. The proposal was intended to give public universities more control over their finances – even allowing them to set their own tuition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rick Karlin wrote in the Albany Times Union:<\/p>\n

The final party-line vote — 32 to 28 — arrived after the sun had set on a dizzying day of last-minute negotiations, one-house bills that have almost no chance of passage in the Assembly, and frenzied efforts to round up two Democratic senators who spent much of the day missing in\u00a0action.<\/p>\n

In other words, it was a fairly typical day in the Senate, which seems to veer between chaos and inertia due to the Democrats’ razor-thin 32-to-30-seat\u00a0majority.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From the New York Times’ Danny Hakim:<\/p>\n

Lawmakers completed one of the latest budgets in New York State history on Tuesday night, passing legislation that will raise an additional $1 billion \u2014 in part by increasing taxes on the sale of clothing and on a variety of businesses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From Celeste Katz, Daily Politics blogger with the NY Daily News:<\/p>\n

After a day of craziness, the budget just got done with a whimper.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The budget log jam in Albany has ended. Senate Democrats ended months of debate and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2447,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446\/revisions\/2447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}