Spin Cycle

After a spirited and, at times, openly hostile leaders meeting, the special session to balance the state budget is officially over with nothing done.

The tactical maneuvering aside, the outstanding feature of this whole effort was Dean Skelos' refusal to offer any ideas for balancing the budget.

The Republican Party -- which once stood for principles of small government and fiscal austerity -- couldn't/wouldn't offer a single idea for cutting a single part of a $62 billion general fund budget. Skelos instead opted to play clever counter-puncher -- protecting teachers and other special interests, leaving it to Democrats to cut, and hoping to exploit that in two years.

He already messed up the elections, losing the Republican majority -- reduced to trying to win an auction for three rogue Dems. Now, he stands on a pose and a posture instead of a principle, operating with Albany blinders -- as if people care about his legislative positioning more than his unwillingness to take responsibility for solving a problem.

All spending is sacrosanct, all cuts are bad, it's not our problem?

It's hard to see how that kind of thinking leads the GOP back into the majority, and into the future.

Correction: Sen. Skelos office complains, appropriately, that the assertion in this post that he didn't offer any budget balancing ideas isn't quite correct.

In fact, he supports several ideas on the revenue side -- collection of sales taxes on cigarettes and gas on Indian reservations; hurrying the VLT licensing deal at Aqueduct and cutting one at Belmont, too; and using part of the state's $1 billion rainy day fund.

On the spending side, he hasn't offered cuts on big ticket items -- state workers, health/Medicaid, school aid -- but says hundreds of millions could be saved by reducing discretionary spending, and supports some of the financial transfers from authorities and special funds that Paterson has proposed.

You could say those ideas aren't all realistic and aren't adequate for dealing with the scope of the problem facing the state. But the post said he didn't offer any ideas, and that was incorrect.