Kruger Questions Paterson’s Budget Cuts
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- October
- 28
Gov. David Paterson’s proposed mid-year budget cuts are facing pushback from Senate Democrats, with Senate Finance Chairman Carl Kruger, D-Brooklyn, this afternoon warning that the Senate will not go along with some of the cuts to education and health care.
After two public hearings this week on the budget, Kruger said the Senate will “develop a deficit reduction plan to close the budget gap without disrupting vital services or imposing any new fees or taxes. And most significantly, the hearings are being conducted in public for all to see and contribute.”
He said more than 100 groups have testified over a two-day period so far. In Long Island, he said parents and children with developmental disabilities spoke about what the cuts would mean to them. And he attached a clip of a mother speaking during the session, which is below.
“There is no doubt that we have to make substantial cuts, but the task at hand is for them to be fiscally responsible and fair. We are in agreement on nearly $2 billion of the Governor’s $3 billion gap closing proposal. But it is no surprise that some aspects of his proposal are simply not acceptable,” he continued.
“Dramatic reductions to higher education opportunity programs for low income students and developmental disabilities services are poorly devised ideas passed off as solutions,” Kruger said in the statement.
“Also, the governor’s Medicaid and healthcare cuts place disproportionate pain on hospitals and nursing homes given they have weathered a number of cuts already. We have to do better and those who do not recognize that responsibility lack the imagination or inclination to come up with new answers to old problems.”
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 4:21 pm by Joseph Spector.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
