The Big Screw

The cartoon pretty much speaks for itself. Michael Ramirez shows his disgust with the way Governor David Paterson has approached the budget mess in New York. He's not alone, although people are dealing with the situation with a far more devastating tact than drawing cartoons.

They're moving out of the state and finding things far more affordable elsewhere in the country. Take the Merritt family. They were struggling to make ends meet living on Long Island. In fact, they were living at their in-laws. They moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where for the same salary they have a home, have a much more affordable tax burden, and don't have to deal with the mess that is the New York state budget.

Those who are left do. And with more people moving out of the state, the tax burden increases for those who are left. Paterson's budget shows just how out of touch he is despite all of his promising soundbites earlier in the year about how he would manage to control spending and look for spending cuts.

He's done nothing of the sort with his budget; he's found that he can still spend more than last year despite dire budget projections. Paterson is calling for more than a billion dollars in new taxes and fees to make the budget work for the upcoming year, even as he's noting that there will be budget shortfalls in the following year.

It's a recipe for disaster and more people are realizing that the solution to the taxing situation and lack of affordability in the New York metro area is to find someplace else to live.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo suggests consolidating municipalities and taxing jurisdictions to streamline and reduce property taxes in the state. It's a good start, but the problem is that those entrenched bureaucracies aren't going to go away without a fight. We've seen in New Jersey that it is damned well near impossible to consolidate municipalities despite the possibility to save money by eliminating duplication of services and the related taxing issues.