Paterson: Fiscal Discipline is Key

NEW YORK CITY-With final passage of New York State’s 2009-2010 budget not yet a done deal and a bailout for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority at an impasse, Gov. David Paterson on Thursday said fiscal discipline was key to the state’s long-term health. Paterson, who spoke at a breakfast presentation sponsored by the Association for a Better New York, held up the budget agreement reached earlier this week as a model of that kind of discipline.

“The fact is, this is a balanced and effective budget” despite attempts to portray it otherwise, Paterson told his audience at the New York Hilton. He noted that it closed the largest deficit in the state’s history–a $17.7-billion gap that had ballooned from $13 billion a few months earlier–and cut spending twice as much as any earlier state budget. The budget also implements reforms that will eliminate waste in the future, Paterson said, provided that lawmakers show the same kind of restraint after the economy begins to recover. He said that governments as well as individuals had overspent over the past 15 years, with one result being that 43 out of 50 states face a deficit this year.

Left to their own devices, “People in Albany will act like the party has started again” when revenues start improving, said Paterson. “As long as I’m governor, they will not.” He said he expected passage of the budget, which was delayed due to the hospitalization of state Sen. Ruth Hassell-Thompson, to happen sometime on Thursday.