Anne on the Money

In a Viewsday post, Anne Michaud made the following crucial point: "Here's a question for those of you keeping score at home. Why is New York's $132 billion state budget so much larger than those of other big states? California has nearly twice the population, with 36 million residents (New York is home to 19 million). But the Golden State's budget this year is $110 billion. Texas, which has a population of 23 million, is getting by on $91 billion annually."

Why indeed. Which makes ersatz all of the WFP palaver over the notion of "fair share." The issue is that New York State is an overly large and bureaucratic enterprise that needs to be cut down to a more manageable size before Leviathan gobbles up all of our tax dollars and sends business packing out of state. With Wall Street down, and maybe out, the old cash cows are gone-and with them, we need to jettison the sacred cows of wasteful spending and ruinous taxation.

This, obviously, is a task that is way beyond the capabilities of our current accidental governor. As the NY Post observes this morning: "Gov. Dave, on the other hand, has things exactly backward: Albany agreed on a new budget last week without making any economies whatsoever...Now, in his year-plus in office, Paterson has folded like a Japanese fan so often that it's hard to know where this will end."

And, as Michaud points out, this wastefulness can be partially attributed to New York's penchant for having what seems to be a government entity on every street: "What is it about New York that sends the numbers soaring? Is it because we have so many small governments -- sewer, water and fire districts, towns and villages -- layered on top of one another? Surely, it must cost more to maintain that infrastructure. Are we getting better services for our money here?"

So let's can all of the fair share BS, and focus on the real problem-a big wasteful government that burdens all tax payers with an unfair looting of their hard earned dough. Now rectifying that situation would be real social justice!