This'n'That; January 3rd[NY Budget;Welfare;Kennedy;Clinton]

NY's Budget Mess The New York State budget is a mess and no one wants to take responsibility; no one has any viable solutions. [I got one:If it ain't in the treasury-Don't Spend It!!] By 2010, the state will have a budget shortfall of $15.4Billion. The G0vernor submitted his budget proposal to the legislature on Dec 16th, which will close the gap. When the state legislature returns to Albany, they'll get their sticky fingers on it, tweek it a bit by siphoning off some to buy votes in future elections [member items=porkbarrel spending] and vote on approval of a document that probably won't resemble the original budget proposal in the slightest. The state's comptroller [the Sarge-In-Charge of the purse strings] Thomas DiNapoli says "Our budgets make spending commitments for future years that aren't sustainable. We have, even in good times, not lived within our means." He also said that the state budgetary process has relied too much on one-time revenues-$21.5Billion since 2002. I checked around the 'net and found that the State of Florida is closest to New York in population [NY-19,490,297; Fl-18,328,340]; the difference being just over 1.1 Million. In a comparison by state, I found that both states' #1 outlay is health care; from there, some categories are the same-some are different. So here they are, in this order [this crappy site doesn't handle charts well] category; number of outlay; NY$; $per capita; Fl$; $per capita]. ***Health care;#1 in NY-$41.2Bln; $2.12/person; #1 in Fl-$18.3Bln; $0.99/person### ***Pensions; #2 in NY-$12.6Bln; $0.65/person; #7 in Fl-$5.3Bln; $0.29/person### ***Other Spending; #3 in NY; $11.7Bln; $0.60/person; #2 in Fl; $9.6Bln; $0.52/person### ***Education; #4 in NY; $11.2Bln; $0.57/person; #3 in Fl; $8.2Bln; $0.45/person###. My humble analysis is: New York has but 1.1Million more residents, but there's great disparity [by total population] in the expenditures IN EVERY CATEGORY except "welfare!!" New York can raise tax rates and add new taxes which, in the short term might close the budget gap; the long range affect will be driving the younger [age 25 to 45] folks out of the state. There is only one equitable method of balancing the budget, that being-CUT STATE GOVERNMENT SPENDING!! Welfare Should Be The First One Cut [Info from the Urban Institute-italics are my comments] Implementation of Family Assistance (FA), the New York TANF program, has resulted in significant reductions in FA caseloads and increased county discretion in implementing local FA-related policy[read: shift the financial burden to the counties]. New York is one of only seven states that offer payments to families beyond the 60-month federal lifetime limit, using state and local funds[read: Reward the welfare rats even more than is required]. The state also offers a generous earnings disregard that provides a substantial incentive to working [If this works, why aren't more welfare rats subjected to it?]. Though the state consolidated child care subsidy resources into a single funding stream at the state level, and substantially increased the level of funding, some counties still had waiting lists for child care subsidies [Are these subsidies available to non-working mothers/families? If so, they shouldn't be!!]. Local spending for child welfare services increased four times more than state spending increases between 1996 and 2000, owing largely to the creation of a state block grant for child welfare services that capped state spending [Again, shifting responsibilities]. What Is Social Welfare Spending? And What Is State Fiscal Capacity? [from the Rockefeller Institute for Government report for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] For the purposes of the study, we defined social welfare spending as programs that supported lower-income households, typically, though not exclusively, programs with means tests. These programs included health initiatives such as Medicaid and state child health insurance programs (SCHIP); cash assistance programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) or cash payments under AFDC’s replacement, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF); and a wide variety of other service programs providing child care, foster care, low-income energy assistance, services to the homeless and those funded by the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG). Because the study was designed to understand the effects of state fiscal capacity on social welfare spending, we included in the analyses only spending that went through the budgets of state and local governments. Direct expenditures by the federal government — such as the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Food Stamp Program (FSP) benefits, and the federal portion of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for poor elderly and disabled people — were excluded from direct examination. Although the study used spending data on specific programs, such as Medicaid and TANF, at several points in the analysis, most of the quantitative research in the project was based on state and local spending data collected annually by the U.S. Census Bureau (Census Bureau) since 1977. One of the largest expenditure categories in the Census of Governments (Census) data was termed public welfare expenditures, amounting to $233 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2000. To determine whether fiscal capacity affected different types of social welfare spending in different ways, the study organized the 10 subcategories under public welfare expenditures into three basic types of spending: Cash assistance, which included AFDC, TANF cash assistance, general assistance, and state supplements to SSI; Medicaid, which was found to be closely related to one of the Census categories, “Payments to Medical Vendors”; and Non-health social services, which included a wide variety of services and in-kind benefits, such as child welfare services, child care subsidies, energy assistance programs, shelters for the homeless, and many others. "Slick-Willie" Over "Princess Caroline?" The state's Assembly Speaker sheldon silver has decided to support the Princess to be the "carpetbagger-in-waiting." He's rethinking his disapproval of her appointment. Like most other politicians, he wants to be on "the winnin' side!!" His change in opinion has nothing to do with what's best for NYS, her [lack of] experience or even her DNA..... It's all 'bout winnin'!! I don't know what moron put forth "Slick-Willie's" name as a "caretaker senator" but he or she must be a mental midget!! Do they really think "slick" would consider the seat; the pool of hotties would be too small for him to choose one as "Chief Rocket Polisher." That "caretaker senator" thing.... whatta hell would give anyone the idea that he'd give the seat up at the end of the current term? Back in power.... power that his wife's position didn't provide; The federal largess..... his fingers back in someone else's till..... I really can't decide which is worse..... One with not a modicum of experience..... the other as dishonest and untrustworthy as they come!!!! Til Nex'Time...........