{"id":396,"date":"2009-01-06T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-06T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/01\/06\/is-gov-paterson-doing-the-right-thing\/"},"modified":"2009-01-06T09:30:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-06T13:30:00","slug":"is-gov-paterson-doing-the-right-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/01\/06\/is-gov-paterson-doing-the-right-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Gov. Paterson doing the right thing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Governor Paterson is pushing deep budget cuts, which are already trickling down to state agencies, local governments, hospitals and school districts across New York.<\/p>\n

Alice Hyde in Malone has put major projects on hold; the city of Plattsburgh is planning lay-offs; state prisons are threatened with closure; a hiring-freeze has already cost the region dozens, if not hundreds, of jobs.<\/p>\n

In any other climate, these moves would look like sound conservative fiscal policy. But in a recession this deep, most economists think governments should spend big to stimulate a private-sector recovery.<\/p>\n

In the late ’20s and early ’30s, Franklin Roosevelt — then the Governor of New York state — tested many of the policies that would later coalesce as the New Deal.<\/p>\n

That included spending big on infrastructure projects, including the St. Lawrence Seaway. (And, yes, it also included huge budget deficits.)<\/p>\n

So far, the nation’s governors aren’t following Roosevelt’s model. Just the opposite.<\/p>\n

In a column last week, New York Times scribe Paul Krugman accused them of being “50 Herbert Hoovers<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

But even as Washington tries to rescue the economy, the nation will be reeling from the actions of 50 Herbert Hoovers \u2014 state governors who are slashing spending in a time of recession, often at the expense both of their most vulnerable constituents and of the nation\u2019s economic future.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More troubling is the fact that governors around the country are asking for a big chunk of the Federal stimulus money — as much as a trillion dollars. <\/p>\n

Not to create new projects, but to forward-fund existing state programs. That kind of spending won’t kick-start anything.<\/p>\n

What alternative does Governor Paterson have? He can’t borrow the same way the Fed can; nor can he print buckets of money. <\/p>\n

The only remaining alternative? Taxes. <\/p>\n

We’ll see if Governor Paterson wrestles with any of these ideas on Wednesday, when he takes to the airwaves with his State of the State address.<\/p>\n

The question he needs to answer is pretty simple: How do deep cuts in state spending help lead to a revival of New York’s wider economy?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Governor Paterson is pushing deep budget cuts, which are already trickling down to state agencies, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396"}],"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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}