Oh so many taxes, fees and cuts! Paterson's proposed budget is filled with so many items one could get lost reading it. Well, the good government groups have smart people reading through it and they found that a recently added item to the budget last year has been quickly deleted. It was meant to help New York investigate corruption in our elections...oh well.
From Politics On The Hudson:
The best we can? Oy, that isn't good. I know Paterson needs to cut a few billion from the budget, but can't help out the electoral system here in the Empire State for a mere $2.7 million? Ensuring some accountability in the process here is worth more than what it costs.
Gov. Paterson’s budget would wipe out 21 positions designed to check for campaign-finance fraud and other problems – setting up New York to be “another Illinois,’’ a good-government lobbyist said today.
“We already have the most loophole-ridden and lax campaign-finance law in the country, and this will just further decrease the small bit of confidence New Yorkers have in their government,’’ said Barbara Bartoletti of the League of Women Voters.
Paterson’s plan would save $2.7 million by eliminating the Board of Elections jobs, most of which have yet to be filled after they were authorized in the 2007-08 state budget.
When asked if the Board of Elections could enforce campaign-finance laws without filling the positions, spokesman Robert Brehm said “we’ll do the best we can.’‘
Or.....
Paterson and the rest of Albany could completely reform the elections law to give New York the Clean Money, Clean Elections legislation that we so desperately need. Instead of policing the abuse of loopholes, we could simply close them all up with a public system. Yeah, yeah, I know, it'll be a cold day in hell, right?
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