Gov. David Paterson and Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi have just announced another series of hearings across the state to discuss lowering property taxes (link to come). After a bruising deadlock over the 4 percent school property tax cap last month, you have to give them points for persistence.

The pro-cap forces count Long Island as their strongest base. But the problem is that they have not been able to pull together a coalition that includes other expensive suburbs. Westchester and Rockland are "vehemently opposed," says Assemb. Chuck Lavine (D-Glen Cove).

Lavine supplied this account of a mid-August meeting of Assembly's Democratic caucus.

Those who favor a cap pushed for a bill that would combine a cap and a so-called circuit-breaker. (A circuit-breaker would limit how much lower-income families pay in property taxes, to somewhere between 6 and 8 percent of their household income.) Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver wanted to print a bill with these twin proposals.

If the sea of about 84,000 spectators at Invesco Field at Mile High seemed like a lot to you last night, imagine how many arenas we could fill with a much less cheery crowd here in New York. About half a million workers across the state were stuck on the unemployment rolls as of July, according to a new report by the Fiscal Policy Institute.

Calling the joblessness problem “the other crisis in Albany,” the labor-friendly think tank reported yesterday:

The New York State unemployment rate was 5.2 percent in July, up from a low-point of 4.3 percent in 2006. Higher still is the rate of underemployment (8.1 percent in 2007, the latest data available), which includes people who are so discouraged that they have stopped looking for work, and workers who would like to work full time but can only find a part-time job.

The FPI analysis also found that New York workers' median hourly wage has been relatively stagnant since 2003, and dipped over the past year. Modest job growth did occur between 2003 and 2007, according to the report, but was “largely driven by debt and an unprecedented housing market bubble.”

Though Long Island is known as one of the state’s bastions of affluence, it ranked high among counties in terms of rising unemployment. From the first half of 2007 to the first half of 2008, average unemployment in Suffolk grew from about 29,900 to 36,700 (a 22.6 percent jump), and in Nassau from roughly 24,900 to 30,200 (21 percent). New York's overall average unemployment grew by around 13 percent; job losses have clustered in the finance, construction and retail sectors.

The trends signal a troubling change, but not a hopeless one, the institute says. The report urges Albany lawmakers to respond by reforming the state's unemployment insurance system (which currently doles out about $300 per week on average), to help families ride out the economic slump while softening the impact of eroding wages.

An Albany update, as promised.

No surprises here. The Assembly has introduced bills that would enact a property tax circuit breaker and would raise income taxes for people who make more than $1 million a year. A circuit breaker holds down property taxes for households earning below a certain income. Assembly Democrats supported both measures during their regular session in the spring.

Sisa Moyo, a spokeswoman for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, says the Democrats will conference on the bills in the morning, prior to the opening of the special legislative session.

Talks about budget cuts continue, Moyo says.

Gov. David Paterson presented the State Legislature with an interesting choice when he laid out $1 billion in proposed spending cuts last week. One of the easier cuts to make -- politically -- is $200 million for legislators' grants to groups and institutions in their districts. The $200 million in pork projects is allocated among Assembly members, state senators and the governor.

Unlike, say, the hospitals and nursing homes that depend on Medicaid, the usually small organizations that receive legislative grants often don't have statewide lobbying arms. That's why they're an easier political target for the budget axe. Cutting growth in Medicaid by $506 million was the single biggest budget reduction Paterson suggested last week, and predictably, the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) and the state's largest health workers union, SEIU 1199, cried foul. They are waging a significant public campaign against the cuts.

Newsday's James Madore is reporting that legislative grants are a focus of talks by Senate Republicans and Assembly Democrats. And Liz Benjamin at The Daily Politics blog agrees that there is bipartisan support for pork cutting.

Meanwhile, state leaders continue to work on a compromise to reduce the current budget by $1.2 billion -- or about 1 percent of the $122 billion overall budget -- in time for a special session of the legislature tomorrow. We'll post updates as they happen. Stay tuned.

The Working Families Party and the Alliance for Quality Education are airing ads this week -- and possibly over the weekend, if they can raise the money -- to fight a proposed 4 percent statewide cap on school property tax increases.

The ad dismisses the cap as a "gimmick," when in fact it is probably a reasonable upper limit on how much homeowners contribute to school budgets. Some anti-tax activists privately argue that the cap should be much lower, or that some method should be found to roll back property taxes.

The WFP and AQE are hoping to influence the State Legislature, which convenes in a special session on Tuesday. But the ad specifically attacks Gov. David Paterson and says he is out to hurt the state's schoolchildren, which is absurd.

The State Senate has already passed the cap, and today the New York State United Teachers says it will withhold re-election support from all 38 senators who voted for it.

Clearly the teachers' representatives believe this is a fight that calls for hardball tactics. Are they going too far?

Quick survey: opinion polling is the a) best, b) worst, thing ever to happen to American politics.

Pollsters have attained god-like status with their powers of gauging the public's psyche, yet trying to divine any real insight from polls tends to just make politicians, media outlets, and voters more confused about what people really think.

Yesterday on Washington Monthly’s Political Animal, David Moore, a former Gallup opinion maestro who just published a tell-all book about his craft, took the polling-political-industrial complex to task.

He parsed an interesting quirk in the way people respond to poll questions: People might say they favor one thing, but not actually give a hoot about whether their opinions are reflected in public policy. One person may take a "permissive" position, meaning they “would not be upset if the government did the opposite of what they just said they preferred.” Another might hold a “directive” opinion—strong enough to lead them to take action if the government went against their position, “even if only by eventually voting against political leaders who supported it.”

Pollsters tend not to bother with such nuance, however.

With the whole state budget headed for a crash diet in next week's legislative session, health care for the poor has once again landed on the table.

Paterson’s proposed cuts would slice the growth in Medicaid spending by more than $500 million for the rest of this fiscal year, followed by about $1 billion in 2009-2010. The proposal would target funding for hospitals, nursing homes and medications, as well as public programs like Family Health Plus.

No one would deny that Medicaid costs a lot; the state spends more per person on Medicaid than many other states, and the governor estimates that spending increases will account for about one quarter of the budget shortfall for the 2009-10 fiscal year. But critics argue that there are better ways for Albany to save money than scrimping on health care for low-income people.

Governor David Paterson issued a stern warning on Tuesday and Wednesday, urging lawmakers to tighten their belts and brace for spending cuts. "The era of buy now, pay later and later is over,” he declared.

Figuring out just who pays is, naturally, the tricky part. And in that sense, we can expect the current fiscal tensions to evoke the standard tug-of-war in Albany.

The landscape is already polarizing as the business-oriented Citizens Budget Commission calls for controlling government spending on social services while the labor-friendly Fiscal Policy Institute urges ramping up taxes for higher income brackets.

New York has the dubious distinction of having a divorce system based on proving "fault"--that one spouse wronged another. The acrimony of the Brinkley trial laid bare some of the litigiousness that fills our divorce courts. The Opinion section invites readers to share their thoughts on New York's divorce system in our forum, Splitsville, New York.

If you (or your parents) have been through divorce in New York, we encourage you to share your own personal experiences and discuss ideas for reforms with some experts in the field:

Did the legal system hurt or help the process?

Do you think a "no-fault" system would lead to a fairer settlement?

What was the impact on your family dynamics and parent-child relationships?

How can divorcing parents, inside and outside the legal system, ensure that their children's privacy and sensitivity is respected?

Read more about this issue here, and follow the link to the forum to join the discussion.

Read more about our panelists: Steven Carlson, Steven Demby, Hal Mayerson and Andrew Schepard.

Whatever the armed forces are doing to screen service members for signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, it's not enough.

So we like new legislation sponsored by Sen. Charles Fuschillo (R-Merrick), which provides funding to train the state's mental health workers to recognize PTSD and traumatic brain injury (TBI). It's a major step on the way to making sure these life-changing afflictions get treated adequately. The bill passed both the Senate and the Assembly and is awaiting Gov. David Paterson's signature.

By all accounts, the sheer numbers of young men and women coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering suffering from PTSD is frightening. Fuschillo cites a Rand Corporation study finding that the percentage of service members suffering from major depression or PTSD is one in five, and a report from The Journal of the American Medical Association that PTSD rates are nearly 25 percent among National Guard and Reserve troops serving in Iraq.

The money for the first year of this three-year training program, $250,000, is already in the current budget. It's a small amount of money that can do a lot of good.

After weeks of mounting public outrage, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board has finally voted to shed its travel perks. The Board has come under fire (including some from this editorial page) for providing former and current members with unlimited E-ZPass access and free subway and bus rides.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo struck a populist nerve by accusing the (well-heeled) MTA Board of violating a state ban on compensation for its members. Cuomo seems to be on a roll: last year, he successfully campaigned to cut off health care provided to board members of state authorities, which he also viewed as an illegal reward.

The actual fiscal impact of nixing this perk is unclear. The Times reported last month that current and former MTA Board members collectively own 95 E-ZPass tags, and that E-ZPass bridge and tunnel tolls typically cost a regular commuter about $166 a month.

Forcing the Board to travel like the rest of us do is ultimately more of a political move than a decisive crackdown on corruption. But it does send the message that the state’s public trustees are expected to serve humbly, without milking undue privileges from the systems they help govern. And if their sticky fingers start to stray, someone is watching.

The three men in a room in Albany have agreed on legislation to give homeowners more assistance when a lender is about to foreclose. The Albany Times-Union says that the deal includes $25 million for legal services for low-income people, a 90-day pre-foreclosure proceeding and a required settlement conference between the borrower and the lender. We supported some of these measures in an editorial just today.

At the same time, New York's Chief Justice Judith Kaye announced that the courts will create a special division to handle foreclosure cases. The details of her plan are an exact match with what Gov. David Paterson had proposed in his program bill on foreclosures.

Cooperation and progress in Albany. Wow.

The decision by Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) to co-sponsor a key climate change bill is very big news.

The Assembly has already passed a bill sponsored by Assemb. Robert Sweeney (D-Lindenhurst) that would require sharp cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050: 80 percent below 1990 levels. Sen. Thomas Morahan (R-New City) is sponsoring a bill that's almost as ambitious: 80 percent below 2000 levels. It's in the Rules Committee, awaiting a decision on whether it gets to the Senate floor.

As deputy majority leader and head of the Long Island Senate delegation, Skelos has immense influence. His name on the bill improves its chances immensely. Of course, when you're talking about Albany you must always remember the immortal words of Joaquin Andujar, the lovably loopy St. Louis Cardinals pitcher, who famously said: "My favorite word in English is 'youneverknow.'" In Albany, indeed, youneverknow. But Skelos deserves a pat on the back for giving this bill a better chance. We hope he'll keep pushing to get the bill to the floor.

Political insiders continue to wonder whether Gov. David Paterson will seek election in 2010. Paterson says he will run, but for a number of reasons people speculate that he won't. Part of that may be wishful thinking on the part of potential Democratic rivals who want to jump into the race but won't if he runs. But there's also his health. He has had three recent eye surgeries.

In any event, Paterson is walking the walk of a man who plans to run. He is stacking up constituencies like gay and lesbian groups, who applaud his order that state agencies follow a recent court ruling and recognize gay marriages performed outside of New York. Although, it's worth noting that a New York Times poll released on Monday shows that respondents were divided over Paterson's move, with 48 percent approving and 46 percent opposed.

In a nod to another constituency, the governor predicted wide support for a property tax cap -- 74 percent of New York voters favored it in a recent Siena poll. He hit the road to deliver speeches around the state, two weeks before the poll was published.

Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi gave Gov. David Paterson a tax "cap" (get it?) this morning, during a press conference with supporters of a 4 percent cap on property tax growth. The caps display the number 74 in reference to a poll published yesterday in which 74 percent of respondents said they want taxes capped. (Photo courtesy of Judy Sanders, Office of the Governor)

Siena College's new poll out today could breathe new life into the idea of capping property taxes. It says voters favor a tax cap by 74 percent to 15 percent, with the remainder undecided.

Siena does not break out Long Island specifically. But it does give figures for New York City suburbs, which includes the Island as well as Westchester, Rockland and Orange counties, Siena spokesman Steve Greenberg explains. Long Island accounts for more than half that region. You can read the detailed breakdown here.

Of three regions broken out -- the others are upstate and NYC -- the NYC suburbs had the most passionate response. Here, 76 percent support Gov. David Paterson's proposal to hold property taxes to 4 percent growth each year or less (versus 75 percent upstate and 71 percent in NYC).

Assemb. Peter Rivera (D-Bronx), chairman of the Mental Health Committee, has e-mailed a Newsday editorial supporting his position to his fellow members. The editorial explains that financing for nonprofit agencies is being held hostage to industrial development agency (IDA) reform in Albany.

A union coalition is also running radio ads on IDA reform and sending direct mail. More on that below.

Assemb. Sam Hoyt (D-Buffalo), admits that he is holding the nonprofit side hostage in order to force reform of the for-profit IDA loans and tax breaks. Almost everyone agrees that IDAs operate with too little oversight, conflicts of interest and deals with companies that turn out to be bad for the public till. Companies are often not held to their job-creation promises, simply because no one is checking back.

Hoyt said in an interview that he is willing to negotiate with the Senate and governor, if only they would come to the table. "This may hurt my position to say this," he said. "But there is no single provision of my bill that I am not open to discussing."

As Gov. David Paterson plunges into roiling political waters with his mandate recognizing same-sex marriages, conservatives from New York to California are gunning for a showdown in America's fiercest marital feud.

The Governor's new policy to embrace same-sex marriages performed outside New York (Canada for instance) probably packs more political than legal punch, according to Leonard Link at New York Law School, but nonetheless fans the flames of the debate. Though Albany Republicans have laid low so far, the Alliance Defense Fund, a well-connected, Arizona-based conservative Christian group, is trying to block the measure in State Supreme Court. The organization hasn't had much legal success in New York, but several state lawmakers are backing the new suit, including Sen. Serphin Maltese (R-Queens), whose seat will be hotly contested in November.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is different things to different people: for some sufferers, it may be relentless anger, for others, unshakeable anxiety. And for some, PTSD is an emotional deep-freeze, creating a wrenching disconnect from friends and family. In Albany in 2006, however, PTSD was a legislative pawn lost in the political horse-trade, as the insurance industry lobby bucked against New York’s landmark mental health parity bill.

As we noted in today’s editorial, full coverage for PTSD was removed from Timothy’s Law as a legislative trade-off to get the bill passed. So unlike other states with similar laws, New York mandates comprehensive insurance coverage for other mental disorders, like major depression and schizophrenia, but not PTSD specifically. Now, according to recent research, the mental-health needs of soldiers returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars could drastically drive up the social costs of the PTSD compromise.

Four lawyers are seeking class-action status to protect the pension credits they earned while working as consultants to schools. But the rules about who qualifies as an employee -- and therefore has a right to a pension -- are pretty simple. Especially if you went to law school.

The law states that individuals are independent contractors if they are free from control and direction in their performance; if the service is performed outside the usual course of the employer's business; and if the individual is engaged in an independently established occupation or business of the same nature as the service.

Decisiveness is not Brookhaven Supervisor Brian X. Foley's strongest character trait. But even for Foley, the decision about making a State Senate race brings glorious new meaning to the word "agonizing." He didn't finally make up his mind until hours before the Democratic county nominating convention.

Speaking of agonizing, that's what life is like for Foley these days as supervisor. He's in a constant cobra-and-mongoose struggle with the new 4-to-3 Republican majority on the Town Board, which takes some of the zest out his job. Besides, everyone knows that he's more of a legislator than an administrator by temperament. So the opportunity to run for the Senate is tempting. He's a known brand name in southern Brookhaven, which Democratic strategists believe could offset the strength there of the incumbent, Sen. Caesar Trunzo (R-Brentwood), especially if this turns out to be a strong Democratic year, as many expect.

On the other side of the argument, there's no indication that two other potential Democratic opponents for Trunzo, Jimmy Dahroug and Legis. Ricardo Montano (D-Central Islip), will gently disappear from the scene without a whimper. So Foley will almost certainly have to win a Democratic primary before facing Trunzo.

And, if he gets as far as the general election, Foley will face a multimillion-dollar onslaught from the Senate Republican leadership and the state Republican Party. Continued control of the Senate is at stake, and the Republicans will go after Foley with everything they have.

Finally, if Foley should win a seat in the Senate, and if Democrats take control there, he'll be greeted as a conquering hero in Albany. But Brookhaven Democrats will have to find someone to run in a special election for supervisor. One strong contender would be Patchogue Mayor Paul Pontieri, who has done an outstanding job of redeveloping his downtown and setting an example for other Long Island communities. But would Pontieri be willing to leave a job where he is really getting something done, in harmony with the village board, to seek one that would put him in frequent conflict with the opposite party--even though he has a good relationship with Councilman Tim Mazzei, the leader of the GOP majority?

When you take a look at all the uncertainties, maybe it isn't so surprising that it took Foley so long to make up his mind.

Word is that Gov. David Paterson is planning a summit meeting of state agency chiefs tomorrow, to read them the riot act on saving money. In April, after the budget passed, Paterson called on each agency to submit a detailed plan on how they would cut spending by 3.35 percent. The plans were due Friday.

Now there's a question on whether Paterson will be able to attend. He was taken to the hospital this morning with migraine-like symptoms. Preliminary tests were normal, but he will have more tests later today.

The prospect of calling on New York's agency heads to cut costs and freeze hiring could give anyone a headache.

Update: The governor has been diagnosed with acute glaucoma in his left eye and is undergoing an outpatient laser procedure to relieve pressure on the eye. He is at Mount Sinai Medical Center, and the governor's spokeswoman says the operation is not expected to have any long-term impact on his health.

The absence of a state development "czar," since Pat Foye resigned in March, has created a void that is causing a lot of political trouble for Gov. David Paterson.

First, there is the upstate cry-out against Paterson's decision to eliminate the two-chairman system -- one each for upstate and downstate. Paterson wants to put just one person in charge of the Empire State Development Corp, but upstate advocates and editorial writers fret that he will re-create the Manhattan-centric agency that Charles Gargano chaired for the Pataki administration.

Paterson is undoubtedly right in wanting a single person in charge. Downstate co-chairman Foye, who resigned after Gov. Eliot Spitzer blew himself up, was a solid leader, but he had to compete for the agency staff's attention with Dan Gundersen, the upstate co-chairman, and Avi Schick, who has many titles -- downstate chief operating officer, president of ESDC, chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., acting downstate chair. The titles are a symptom of the strange organizational structure -- Schick, who is close to Spitzer, never accepted the role of Foye's second-in-command.

There have been stories about how Gov. David Paterson, the first legally blind person to reach the executive post in New York, does his job -- aides recite to him information that other governors would read in briefing books, for example. But as the saying goes, a picture can often communicate much more. Take this one, by photojournalist Nathaniel Brooks:

When I saw the photo in the New York Times this morning, it stopped me. What was I looking at? Then I read the caption: "Gov. David A. Paterson signed a bill on Wednesday at the State Capitol ..."

What a moving image of a man who has refused to be held back by the tough hand life dealt him.

The creation of a new Sustainable Suburban Neighborhoods Initiative at Hofstra University is a hopeful development for the suburban communities that it will help to green up, such as Roosevelt, to name just one.

It’s also good news for all state legislators who have ever felt the wrath of Larry Levy, our former editorial board colleague, who is now executive director of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra. This board has always been skeptical of member items, community initiatives, pork, or whatever you want to call the grants that individual legislators give to community groups. It’s not that the groups themselves are unworthy of support, but that there’s no system of real oversight for the grants. And Larry killed a lot of trees over the years criticizing member items, as we all have.

Now Larry Levy is the recipient of a member item, and legislators from Elmont to Montauk can get a hearty laugh out of it.

After meeting with the New York Congressional delegation, Gov. David Paterson urged the Legislature today to pass measures that will protect New Yorkers from losing their homes. Apparently, the governor does not think federal government action is going to come quickly enough or be adequate.

"I am encouraged by the Congressional attention and recent funding initiatives at the Federal level aimed at stemming the tide of foreclosures," the Governor said. "But there is still a great deal of work that needs to be done at the Federal level. Helping people keep their homes should continue to be a top national priority and is certainly one of mine as Governor of New York."

His proposal looks a lot like Gov. Eliot Spitzer's earlier this year -- mandatory pre-foreclosure settlement conferences, tough measures against rescue scam artists and expansion of the Anti-Predatory Lending Law. Some $150 million the Assembly wanted to include for credit counseling and homeowner assistance was left off the table.

The state Banking Department said yesterday that there were over 14,000 foreclosures in New York in the first three months of the year.