The following appears in the July 15-21, 2011 issue of the Long Island Business News:

During the 2010 election cycle, GOP state Senate candidates swore up and down the state they had “found their way;” were cured of their tax, borrow and spend addiction; and if given another chance, would be the taxpayers’ champions.

It appears to me, however, that in 2011 the GOP Senate’s pledge got lost in the Capitol’s halls. They reverted to their old habits of approving fiscal gimmicks and placating lobbyists and were weak negotiators at the bargaining table. Let’s review:

When Gov. Andrew Cuomo was fighting to close a $10 billion hole in the state budget, instead of insisting on shared sacrifice, Republican senators insisted on restoring education cuts. This action not only made it harder to balance the budget but also disincentivized overpaid school district superintendents to cut their bloated budgets.

In the battle for the tax cap, instead of supporting a permanent 2 percent cap, they surrendered to the special interests and agreed to a cap that exempts school district pension contributions and expires in five years. With pension contributions expected to skyrocket to north of 20 percent of total school district spending by 2016, this exemption will neuter the cap.

To make matters worse, the Republicans also sponsored and passed legislation that further cripples the effectiveness of the tax cap. The bill, S.4067-A, will permit school districts to use the proceeds from the issuance of 15-year bonds to pay current pension contributions. E.J. McMahon of the Manhattan Institute has reported that the measure was passed “at the behest of the N.Y.S. United Teachers as a way of reducing pressure on teachers to make contract concessions.”

This borrow-and-spend tactic is the worst fiscal abuse. Borrowing to pay today’s operating bills brought New York City to the brink of bankruptcy in 1975 and Nassau County to its fiscal knees in 2000.

If this installment debt measure was signed into law, taxpayers would have gotten hit with a double whammy – tax increases to pay for pension benefits and additional taxes imposed to pay for the interest on 15-year pension bonds. Fortunately, the governor had the good sense to veto this measure.

Then there was the extension of that World War II relic – rent control in Manhattan and Nassau County. The Republican senators were afraid to let the law sunset and were too cowardly to insist on genuine free market reforms. They not only rolled over dead, they surrendered reforms they achieved in the 1990s.

Under the new law, rent control ceilings are to increase to $2,500 per month and income ceilings will go from $175,000 to $200,000. People who are defined as “millionaires” by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver for income tax purposes will now be eligible for rent-control subsidies. How crazy is that?

In addition, the Senate GOP passed a bill requiring the state to pick up $10 million of annual liability for New York City Off-Track Betting workers laid off when the failed OTB closed last year. This creates a terrible precedent when Suffolk OTB closes – it is in bankruptcy already – and other OTBs around the state also go broke.

Finally, the Republican Senate Conference permitted the same-sex marriage bill to come to the floor for a vote and provided the votes to pass into law. By this action, they alienated their most loyal supporters: social conservatives. Their public rationale that the days of bottling up bills are over is absurd. Every year at least 90 percent of all legislation introduced is bottled up and dies in committee by design. Republican senators will learn, however, that actions have consequences. State Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long’s promise of just retribution could cost them their majority in November 2012 when Long denies recalcitrant GOP senators the party’s line.

New York Republicans fail to grasp that voters have had it with political chameleons. If they do not quickly learn that holding a consistent set of principles enhances their esteem with voters and strengthens their hand at the bargaining table, they will go the way of the 19th century Whig Party.

This entry was posted on July 16, 2011 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Articles/Essays/Op-Ed. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.