How will Cuomo deal with, "Nearly half of the people on Cuomo's transition team and economic advisory council either are registered lobbyists themselves or work for organizations that lobby New York's state government ? Particularly, the lobbyists for Medicaid providers?
"The flood of [NY] taxpayers' money that Medicaid has poured into the hands of providers has spawned a militant, aggressive health-care lobby that threatens and targets individual legislators, and that spends millions on advertising apparently designed to convince the public that any Medicaid cuts would result in patients dying in the hallways of hospitals."
This [$38.7 billion] program costs the taxpayers over $1,300 a year for every man, woman and child in the state. Directly (through their own taxes) and indirectly (through taxes paid by businesses from which they buy goods and services), the average family of four in New York is paying over $5,000 a year to support the [NY] Medicaid program.
Looking at NY spending, we have this budget item list which omits only the spending budgeted for the sacred cow of education. Where do we make the cuts? All data here is from "Comptroller 2010 Report on Financial Condition of NY State." prepared in March 2009.
From the $38.7 billion for Medicaid
or the $4.2 billion spent for public welfare
or the $4.8 billion spent for public safety
or the $5 billion spent for transportation
or the $0.8 billion spent for Environment and Recreation
or the $0.2 billion spent for business regulation
or the $6.4 billion spent for General government
Or a total $60.1 billion
As of 3/31/2010, 16% or $9.8 billion of NY's debt was issued as budget relief. This number was corrected by DiNapoli in an Albany Follies Sideshow by adding another billion dollars to this budget relief in Dec. 2010, thus $10.8 billion is claimed as required. Now from which of the above categories in the State Budget is Cuomo going to take this $10.8 billion from? But, the fiscal reality is that the Albany Clowns are using a grossly low number when next year's budget needs to cut $22.1 billion.
Read from the Public Policy Institute of New York State: Medicaid: Wreaking Havoc in Health Care and discover:
1. Our costs for Medicaid are well over twice the national average.
2. The two larger states, California and Texas, have almost three times our population—but combined, they spend only a bit more than New York on Medicaid.
3. New York's costs are so far out of line that the state sticks local governments with a substantial share—and that, in turn, is a major reason our property taxes are so high. (And Cuomo promises to cap property taxes?)
4. New York's Medicaid is "the mother of all mandates," in which Albany by fiat orders local governments to pay almost $3.7 billion a year of the cost. This mandate hits taxpayers directly in their property taxes (except in New York City, which collects much of the cost through its own personal income tax)
Then, what about the $1.2 billion needed to be refunded to the Federal Government?
What will Cuomo do when "Nearly half of the people on Cuomo's transition team and economic advisory council either are registered lobbyists themselves or work for organizations that lobby New York's state government? The Grand Army of the State of New York Transition and Economic Advisers will have one part working against the other.
Expect lots of sound and fury signifying nothing, while Albany children recite new words to an old ditty:
Oh, The grand Cuomo of New York,
He had ten thousand committee men;
He marched them up to the top of the Capital hill,
And he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down.
He had ten thousand committee men;
He marched them up to the top of the Capital hill,
And he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down.
Then, bankruptcy and sticking it to the "rich" bondholders
link ~ bankruptcy law
link ~ budget impossibility
link ~ Hand writing on the wall for NY bondholderslink ~ Why bondholders will be greatest losers (NY Finance Bazaar)
