Cuomo chameleon: Budget-cutter extraordinaire

Commentary

A newly elected governor just persuaded his dysfunctional state legislature to close a multibillion-dollar deficit, keep taxes in check and limit annual Medicaid spending.

Surely these must be the misdeeds of stonehearted Scott Walker, Wisconsin's GOP chief executive, or that ax-wielding alumnus of the Gingrich Congress, Gov. John Kasich of Ohio.

Actually, this is the handiwork of Andrew Cuomo, New York's Democratic governor.

His performance has advanced the cause of limited government on the Hudson far more than did his past three predecessors -- the hapless David Paterson, the shirtless Eliot Spitzer, and the clueless Republican, George Pataki.

Cuomo ignored the bellyaching of left-wing class warriors and demanded the expiration of a so-called "millionaire's tax" that boosted the 6.85 percent income-tax rate to 7.85 percent for singles earning as little as $200,000 and 8.97 percent for those making at least $500,000.

"The old way of solving the problem was continuing to raise taxes on people, and we just can't do that anymore," Cuomo told the New York Post. "We're going to have to reduce government spending."

Cuomo killed the spending formulae that were "marbleized throughout New York State laws," as he put it.

They automatically boosted annual Medicaid and education expenditures, demanding 13 percent hikes in those programs this year. Instead, Cuomo got Democrats and even the hospital-workers union to accept a 4 percent yearly spending cap on Medicaid and education.

Scrapping these formulae cut this year's deficit by $10 billion, next year's by $13 billion, and set spending growth on a flatter trajectory.

Cuomo secured permission to cut state agencies by 20 percent, close up to six prisons, and merge the state Banking and Finance departments, among other agencies.

The budget lets Cuomo squeeze $450 million in concessions from unions. If they balk, he may sack 10,000 government workers.

The New York Post reacted with a two-word headline: "PIGS FLY."

Cuomo's seriousness jarringly contrasts with Washington, D.C., where un-seriousness is a governing philosophy.

Last year's Democratic Congress never passed a budget, amplifying this year's headaches.

Congressional Republican leaders have attacked the federal budget with a butter knife, rather than a meat cleaver. They have offered a mere $61 billion budget reduction, not the $100 billion they promised to slice from this year's budget.

They largely have ignored Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who discovered $82.4 billion in abandoned accounts that have grown moldy in federal coffers since at least 2005.

Also, the Government Accountability Office recently concluded that Washington really is a giant Department of Redundancy Department. It identified perhaps $100 billion in overlapping projects, such as 47 job-training programs, 82 teacher-quality initiatives and 2,100 federal data centers.

Regardless, Republicans have failed to squeeze at least another $39 billion from this Mount Whitney of waste to keep a key promise that helped them secure the House of Representatives last November.

Even less inspiring, Democrats are trimming the budget with an emery board. The $6 billion they agreed to cut in March shrank 100 percent of Obama's $3.7 trillion budget way, way down to 99.84 percent.

Cuomo's $10 billion state-budget cut is one-and-a-half times what Washington Democrats would remove from the entire federal budget.

Meanwhile, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada moaned that "mean-spirited" Republicans would end federal subsidies for the Cowboy Poetry Festival in Elko, Nevada. This is frightfully close to Nero fiddling in the flames.