Governor Hochul’s unsustainable budget

In Albany, budget theatrics between the governor and the state Legislature commence every February.

There is always plenty of public weeping and moaning and gnashing of teeth by both sides in the mad rush to negotiate an acceptable spending plan that both the executive and legislative branches agree on by April 1 when the new fscal year begins.

Here’s a brief description of how the process generally works: The governor in both the State of the State address and in the budgetary message paints a dire picture of the state’s fnances.

The statements contain dreary economic projections, particularly during a recession.

Fearing rising unemployment and declining economic activity (particularly on Wall Street), the governor lowballs the revenue expected from taxes and fees.

To eliminate a projected defcit the governor calls for reducing bloated bureaucracies and cutting programs, including aid to education and Medicaid.

To share the pain, the governor announces cuts in the executive budget.

Then there are all the fscal gimmicks employed to lessen the fscal blow. These include raids on surplus funds, one-shot revenues, and putting of payments of various invoices until the following fscal year.

No sooner is the ink dry on the governor’s proposal, Progressives bellyache that the cuts and layofs are excessive, and the revenue estimates are too conservative.

As the deadline approaches both sides buckle down and do serious negotiating behind closed doors.

While the governor has the upper hand in the negotiations to get in an on-time budget — that means compromise.

“When you compromise and both sides are unhappy,” Gov. Mario Cuomo once quipped. “That’s a budget.”

And then, after numerous latenight meetings and plenty of public posturing, old-fashioned horse trading, and outright buy-ofs of individual legislators with pork barrel projects for their district, the Legislature passes a budget.

But that is not the way it’s working this year. It’s not the Hochul approach.

Instead of warning legislators that fscal restraint is necessary because there is a looming recession, that federal one-shot COVID relief money has been exhausted, that record high taxes are driving top earners to Florida, that it will take at least three more years to reach pre-COVID employment levels, and then calling for spending cuts and tax relief—Hochul did the opposite.

The governor called for more spending to be paid by raiding reserve funds and increasing various taxes.

The budget the governor proposed is a record-breaking $227 billion, up $7 billion.

Apparently, the governor is not concerned that her reckless spending is not sustainable.

This despite the fact that Hochul’s own fnancial plan projects $20 billion in cumulative defcits between 2025 and 2027.

Another misnomer—the governor’s budget assumes top earners will stay in New York.

In recent years the state has lost over 10% of people earning over $750,000 a year. That’s $21 billion of lost taxable income.

Experts are projecting that this trend will continue. Thus, considering 2% of top earners pay 51% of state income taxes, if 100,000 more move out, New York’s tax base will be wrecked.

To pay of teacher and healthcare unions that supported Hochul last year, school aid will go up at least 9.8%—despite declining enrollment—and Medicaid will increase 9.3%.

Here’s a few other ludicrous items buried in the budget: a 70% increase ($700 million) in tax credits for the movie and television industry.

A $455 million “loan” to the moribund New York Racing Association. Additional pension benefts for state employees and additional health care benefts for undocumented migrants.

There’s also Hochul’s budgetary line item to ban the selling of gas stoves by 2030.

And let’s not forget that Hochul’s proposal is only the frst step in the annual Albany kabuki dance. Gov. Hochul has proven to be a weak negotiator and I expect legislators will bully her into agreeing to a lot more spending.

The net result, the Empire Center for Public Policy rightly predicts, “it’s sure to be the same as years past: pushing New York further down the road of higher taxes, failing taxpayers and setting back the state’s long-term fscal health.”

The world, and that includes America, has become increasingly polarized. This is a dynamic that every sentient American is aware of. This state of polarization is demonstrated in the red state vs. blue state political climate. In bygone days of the 1980s and 1990s we had the politics of personality and were wary that personalities dictated our presidential choices.

Kennedy, Carter, Reagan and Clinton were all charmers and the politics of personality seemed to rule the day. But slowly, a new form of politics took over and now in these halcyon days of the 21st century, politics plays out in terms of red state vs. blue states, Republicans vs. Democrats but in a rigid and primitive manner which forecloses any thoughts of reasonable dialogue.

In psychological terms this attitude is called “splitting” and is a primitive, immature defense defned as the inability to hold opposing thoughts, feelings or beliefs in the mind at one time. Splitting is thought of as blackand-white thinking and is the defning character trait of borderline personality disorder. One hundred years ago the psychoanalytic community was faced with the neurotic personality and treating guilt. By the 1950s the nation psychologically regressed into a more narcissistic dynamic with many patients displaying grandiosity, self-centeredness and the disappearance of guilt.

Today we see a deeper regression into primitive borderline traits with splitting, anger and volatility. These traits have been expressed with school shootings, mass shootings and culminated in the Jan 6 attempted takeover of the Capitol Building. There is much proof that a widespread regression has occurred in the nation if not the world. The question is why has this regression taken place.

To understand why a nation regresses we can explore why patients regress. They will regress if they are overwhelmed with anxiety or if they have lost faith with those in authority. Both these conditions have occurred in America.

Anxiety is widespread now for two major reasons. First of all, the unrelenting food of increasingly complex information that the computer age has presented is overwhelming and produces anxiety on a daily basis. As an example, I am regularly faced with a helpless anxiety when once again something happens to my computer and a Skype session with a patient is interrupted. I am usually clueless has to why this happened or what to do about it.

Or take yesterday for another example. My heating system is run by some advanced looking thermostat and it decided to go blank and stop working. This means I lost control of my heating system in my ofce.

Earth Matters

After one hour of tech support from the thermostat company, my heat still does not work. The magical mysterious world of computers causes lots of anxiety in every one.

The second reason for this regression into polarized red vs. blue split thinking relates to how we now view our leaders. The nation’s most signifcant authority fgure is our president.

Kennedy’s assassination produced a profound loss that the nation has yet to recover from. Then came Watergate, which was another watershed moment in American history because it marked the ascension of the media and investigative journalism and the demolition of authority.

Watergate toppled Richard Nixon, but he was merely the frst president to be destroyed and this was followed by the media demolishing President Ford as a bufoon. Clinton was impeached, Bush was marginalized and fnally Trump was impeached. All this damage to the ofce of the president means that citizens no longer are able to look up to or idealize their leaders.

This produces a regression into a more primitive psychological state of mind where we see splitting, hatred, and volatility. As we become destabilized psychologically we simplify our thoughts and attitudes. We have now arrived at this red state/blue state polarized mentality, which does not allow for any dialogue other than “I’m good and you’re not.”

I see some evidence that as the next presidential election process gets under way there is more civility and eforts towards reason and reconciliation among the hopeful candidates. But it is yet to be seen how long that attitude lasts and whether it will be replaced by further polarization, anger, misinformation and lack of debate. Time will tell.

All great writers coin phrases that last. Charles Dickens began his “Tale of Two Cities” with the lines: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.” Dickens was writing about the French Revolution of 1775, but these lines apply to today as well. We live in times of trouble and times of turmoil.

And surprisingly, the enemy now appears to be within our own borders. Are you a Republican or a Democrat? Are you a friend or an enemy?