Hevesi: Pataki rushing funds ($11.4 billion)

[DoYouEverWonder]

Comptroller charges effort to fast-track $11.4B in projects; governor's aide says Dems stalling reviews

November 22, 2006

ALBANY - Outgoing Gov. George Pataki has tried, with little review, to fast-track billions of dollars in financing for development projects in the final weeks of his administration, state Comptroller Alan Hevesi charged yesterday.

Hevesi said the price tag of projects that went before a state board that approves the proposals totaled $11.4 billion in October and November, outpacing the half-billion average the Public Authorities Control Board typically considers. He also said financing plans for projects are inadequate.

"New York State is already suffering under huge amounts of debt, and now ... there is a rush to push through billions of dollars of projects that will load the state with billions more in debt," Hevesi, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Pataki spokesman Michael Marr dismissed the comptroller's qualms and said objections by Hevesi and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) had created a backlog in the waning days of the Republican administration. Some Republicans have viewed this as an effort to postpone review of projects until Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer takes office in January.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/state/ny-stheve224986348nov22,0,7695388.story?coll=ny-statenews-headlines


Nothing like a last minute Repugs money grab orgy to make your contractor buddies' day.

[POAS]

1. Next come the pardons

[xchrom]

2. screw things up so you can blame the dem.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. Christy Whitman did something similar in the last days.

This is what is known as "leaving scorched earth". This will force Spitzer and the Dems to have to make tough and painful choices to get the budget under control. Some of these choices could involve raising taxes. When they do that, the repukes then have a tailor-made campaign issue.

The voters have short memories and pay little attention to the details. All most of them know how to do is get angry when their taxes go up.

Whitman did this in NJ. It salted the earth for the Dems. The same tough choices were left for Florio by Kean. SOP up here in the Northeast.

The NY Dems need to fight this tooth and nail. It is a distressingly effective tactic.

[trogdor]

7. Crush member pork.

The NY governor has a line-item veto. Spitzer should use it.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Maybe the commitment of billions of dollars is the real reason

that Pataki is trying to 86 Hevesi from his controller's position rather than "corruption".

[hedgehog]

5. That's what I told everybody who would listen!

It sounded awfully fishy that the "scandal" blew up just days before the election!

[Ellis Wyatt]

6. nah,

he did it. And not a single democrat in New York wanted to be anwyere around Hevesi leading up to election or even in post-election celebration.