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Hey, What's 3 Billion Dollars Among Friends?

by: phillip anderson

Thu May 10, 2007 at 14:20:08 PM EDT

Capitol Confidential is reporting that the final spending numbers announced last month when the first budget of the Spitzer era passed were, to put it mildly, bunk. It turns out that the recently adopted budget actually spends $2.9 BILLION dollars more than was originally advertised. Oops.

Budget Spending Bigger Than Billed

He (DiNapoli) announced finding the new state budget actually spends $2.9 billion more than reported when the budget was enacted April 1.
Spending, which increased by $9.4 billion over last year, was at a pace three times the inflation rate, he said. He pegs the budget at $123.9 billion. Beyond that, the budget planners shifted some payments back to last year's budget.
The analysis changes a lot of the cost-control pronouncements of Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

3 billion here. 3 billion there. Pretty soon you're talkin' about real money.

phillip anderson :: Hey, What's 3 Billion Dollars Among Friends?

Tags: Budget, Tom DiNapoli, Eliot Spitzer, Assembly, (All Tags)

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Hey, What's 3 Billion Dollars Among Friends? | 4 comments

i've got an idea... (4.00 / 3)

how about next time we hash out a budget, ya know, with some public scrutiny? i have a feeling that someone may have been able to catch a $3 BILLION dollar discrepancy had the deliberations not taken place behind closed doors.

just a thought.

TODAY is day one. It always is.

by: phillip anderson @ Thu May 10, 2007 at 18:25:32 PM UTC

by: you @ soon

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Wow, it's not like there are any needs for that money (0.00 / 0)

certainly not the second avenue subway, or education, or uninsured people...

by: Roatti @ Thu May 10, 2007 at 19:55:50 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Spitzer responds: (0.00 / 0)

Gov. Eliot Spitzer's budget director, Paul Francis, is rebutting, calling the comptroller's report "highly misleading" and "misleading and inaccurate."
Mr. Francis says the comptroller is counting capital spending items that are traditionally recorded as off-budget items.
"The spending identified by the Comptroller is spending that historically has not been included as on-budget spending in
the State's Financial Plan, nor is it included in the Comptroller's published cash reports," he said.

http://empirezone.bl...

The jury's still out, but I would err on the side that DiNapoli doesn't know what the hell he is talking about.

by: Roatti @ Thu May 10, 2007 at 21:19:31 PM UTC

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Off-budget, capital expense, authority debt, tax expenditures... (0.00 / 0)

...they are all cash out of Ms. or Mr. Taxpayer's pocket at some point, but, by judicious use of various types of PR spin, they can become "not part" of what the public recognizes (through media coverage) as "the budget" for state spending.

My take on this is that different opinions within government, aired in public, can help people see that there are different forces at work creating various types of spending, debt obligation, and tax exemption (I like to call those "indulgences" after the practices of the Holy Roman Empire). It all makes it expensive to live in NYS.

Small retrospective thought: am glad that the Comptroller ended up being somebody who does not feel he owes his job to the Governor, and should gratefully overlook things, flawed as that process ended up being...

by: robinia @ Fri May 11, 2007 at 19:23:09 PM UTC

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Hey, What's 3 Billion Dollars Among Friends? | 4 comments

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