Last week Republicans in Washington too fire for releasing a no-number “budget,” one that included vague ideological positions (deficits and taxes are bad…) but very little substance. <\/p>\n
It was a softball for Democrats, who had a field day with it.<\/p>\n
Now, Senate minority leader Dean Skelos is drifting into the same territory. In response to Governor David Paterson’s everybody-gets-skewered budget, Skelos said the following:<\/p>\n
“We don\u2019t want to tax the wealthy. We don\u2019t put these taxes and fees.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t want to hold our school budgets at a zero increase at a time when our need education. We don\u2019t want to in any way jeopardize anybody\u2019s ability to get healthcare.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t want to lay workers off. This is in response to a crisis. So, if you pick it apart and ask questions one by one, is it a good idea to be cutting these resources? No.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So: No new taxes, no new fees — but also no lay-offs, no cuts to education, no laid off workers, and healthcare for everybody. How do those numbers add up?<\/p>\n
Democrats have handled the current budget crisis clumsily, at best. But Republicans need to do better than this in providing a viable alternative.<\/p>\n
Borrow-and-spend just isn’t an option anymore in New York state. The question: whether voters understand that.<\/p>\n
Skelos seems to be hoping that we New Yorkers want more jobs, more services, and a more comprehensive safety net — without paying any more in taxes.<\/p>\n
And he seems to believe that we won’t accept real sacrifices, including things like pay cuts for teachers and public service unions.<\/p>\n
This debate is just beginning and will continue until the November 2010 elections…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last week Republicans in Washington too fire for releasing a no-number “budget,” one that included […]<\/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\/649"}],"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=649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}