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Paterson's budget calls for cuts -- and taxes -- galore
New York's teetering economy will require a series of painful spending cuts to programs used by nearly all state residents and force more than $4 billion in higher taxes on everything from health insurance policies to the price of admission to the circus, Gov. David A. Paterson said Tuesday in proposing to close a $15.4 billion budget deficit.

Money to lure new jobs would be cut, as would efforts to protect the environment. Nearly 2,000 prison inmates would be released early to save money. State workers would be laid off, and those who aren't would see their salaries and benefits frozen and cut.
Any publicists being fired?
The state's debt would be driven to historic levels, and state university tuition would jump by 14 percent. Nearly $1.5 billion in annual property tax rebate checks would be scrubbed. Education and health care, the two biggest areas of the budget, would see $4.5 billion in cuts.

"We're going to have to take some extreme measures," Paterson told lawmakers of the challenge of closing the state's largest deficit ever.

The reaction was swift -- and negative.

Hospitals and nursing homes would close, health care officials say, and those that don't would cut back on patient care. As a result of Albany's decreasing school aid, schools would reduce classroom and after-school programs, and property taxes would rise, education officials warned.

Middle-class taxpayers would be hit hard, critics said, not just from the cuts, but from the stunning array of increases in taxes and fees.

New Yorkers would pay more for registering a car, catching a salmon or trout, going to the movies, getting a haircut, buying gasoline, drinking beer and buying nondiet soft drinks.

Republicans say the Democratic governor's tax and fee plan is actually $2 billion higher than being revealed. In all, there are 151 proposals that would create or increase taxes.

Beyond the cuts and tax increases, the proposed budget has a good share of what critics call gimmicks.

Paterson, for instance, is proposing to "sweep" $1.4 billion from off-budget accounts, such as from the New York Power Authority, into the general fund to balance the ledgers. Indeed, nearly 40 percent of the plan to reduce the deficit in what's left of this fiscal year would come from such transfers. A additional $1.1 billion in actions next year would come through nonrecurring moves, or "one-shots."
Posted by: Fred 2008-12-18
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=257525