40 - Forty - XL - Two Score

State Budget

40 Days Late

And $9B Short

By Henry J. Stern
May 10, 2010

The State of New York has now been without a budget for forty days. We have as yet seen no indication as to when a budget will be adopted by the state senate and the assembly that will be approved by the governor.

The continuing delay presents a serious problem to municipalities, counties and school districts now preparing their own budgets, which are dependent on state aid, the amount of which will not be determined until the state adopts its own budget.

Since there is nothing more we can do to speed the process, we decided to mark the occasion of the 40th day of legislative lateness by collecting some references to the number forty in history, literature and popular culture. We are certain that there are many others. You are invited to send us any that you know of which you believe deserve wider circulation. We thank Google and Wikipedia for a few of those listed below, but most come from our own life experience.

Forty days and forty nights -- the length of the deluge. Described in Genesis 7:12 "And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights."

Forty years -- the time the Hebrews spent in the wilderness after fleeing from Egypt across the Red Sea. Described in Exodus 16:35: "The Israelites ate manna for forty years, until they came to a habitable land; they ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan."

Forty acres and a mule -- General William T. Sherman's Special Field Orders No. 15, January 16, 1865, "So that each family shall have a plot of not more than 40 acres of tillable ground…" Forty acres is one sixteenth of a square mile, which consists of 640 acres. A quarter section is 160 acres. The mules were not mentioned in the orders, but were given out to settlers because the Military Division of the Mississippi (of the Grand Army of the Republic) owned some animals which were no longer needed to carry supplies.

Forty (quarante) -- the number of days of isolation formerly required to prove the absence of illness. The word "quarantine" was derived from this time period.

Forty winks -- a brief nap.

Forty whacks -- what Lizzie Borden gave her mother with an axe in New Bedford, MA in 1892. Forty-one -- what she then gave her father. She was acquitted by a jury, which may have taken pity on her as an orphan. The axe was never found.

"Life Begins at 40" -- a self-help book by Walter Pitkin (1932), written to lift the spirits of middle-aged people. A widely used phrase in popular culture, and the title of a television series from Hong Kong. The age of 40 is now a threshold for lawsuits alleging age discrimination, usually in employment.

The 40-hour week was once an objective of organized labor, whose members were once required to work Saturdays. It is now considered burdensome by employees who have become accustomed to a 35-hour week, e.g. 9 to 5, with an hour off for lunch.

Minus 40 -- The temperature at which the Fahrenheit scale coincides with the Celsius (centigrade) scale. It is extremely cold.

Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves -- The title character of this medieval Arabic story outwits a gang of thieves, thereby acquiring their treasure. A French scholar, Antoine Galland, included the tale in his translation of "One Thousand and One Nights."

Forty Thieves -- A 19th century New York street gang. They lived in the infamous Sixth Ward and operated out of the back room of a Centre Street grocery store. The phrase has also been used as a reference to the old Board of Aldermen, the predecessor legislative body to the City Council, which today has 51 members

Tomorrow, May 11, the state budget will be 41 days late. The main association we have with the prime number 41 is that it was the margin by which Ed Koch defeated Carmine DeSapio in a race for Democratic district leader in Greenwich Village in 1963. The outcome was eventually invalidated by the courts on the ground that the number of unintentional irregularities exceeded the margin between the candidates. A re-run was ordered for primary day in 1964, which Koch won by 164 votes.

They Can't Work It Out

Three Men In a Room

Nowhere to Be Seen,

Budget 37 Days Late

By Henry J. Stern
May 7, 2010

Today, Friday, May 7, is the 37th day the State of New York has been without a budget. The state's fiscal year begins April 2, and a tenth of it has now passed, with the state relying on emergency extensions to avoid a shutdown.

There is still no sign that a resolution of the budget impasse between the governor, the senate and the assembly is imminent, so it is difficult to predict how long it will be before a budget is agreed upon.

The delay causes particular hardship to municipalities and local school boards, which normally adopt their own budgets in May or June and are dependent on state aid, which in many cases is a return of the taxes paid to the state by people in those localities.

This year, because of the Great Recession (lower revenues and steadily increasing labor, and health and pension costs) the budget gap is higher than ever. The state gap is now between nine and ten billion dollars, and New York State's finances are comparable to those of Greece, or California. The State Senate has shown itself more amenable to budget reductions than the Assembly, which is more responsive to public employee unions. However, neither house is anywhere near a balanced budget, and it is likely that there will be a resort to backdoor borrowing, illegal and irresponsible as that may be.

The fact is that there is a structural gap in both city and state budgets. In this case, structural means chronic. In good economic times, government may come close to breaking even. But the general tendency in periods of prosperity is to increase expenditures, which make government particularly vulnerable when times turn bad. There is always more pressure on government to spend than to save, and politicians, constantly eager to please constituencies, support programs that the state cannot afford to fund.

The press will cover the budget machinations as deadlines approach and are passed without action. This year the trichotomy--a lame-duck governor and two houses with their own agendas--is unlikely to lead to harmonious resolution of differences. It may be, however, that when they tire of controversy and decide they would look better by reaching agreement, they will come to terms with each other.

Remarkably, as we are writing this, a bulletin has appeared on the computer monitor that the Marist Poll has found that New Yorkers are unhappy about the late budget. 47% of poll respondents said that the lateness of the budget worried them "a great deal." An additional 25% said it mattered "a good amount." When 72% of the public is concerned about the lateness of the budget, it could become a potent issue in the upcoming campaign.

The poll contains bad news for the Governor: only 31% of respondents claimed to be happy with his leadership on budgetary issues. Admittedly, this would be significantly worse news if he were still a candidate for office. He was wise to retire.

Link to the full results of the Marist poll here.

Other articles on the budget appear today on the illustrious illustrated blog, True News.

DIGRESSION: Marist is a college in Poughkeepsie, a city on the Hudson River about 80 miles north of New York, and county seat of Dutchess. Marist is one of four colleges in the region that poll on public issues, the others being Siena College in Loudonville, a suburb north of Albany, Quinniapac College, located in Hamden, CT, which is just north of New Haven, and Canisius College in Buffalo. Quinniapac is named for a local Indian tribe which was part of the Algonquin family.

The other three are Catholic colleges, named respectively for Mary, the mother of Christ; St. Bernardino Siena, an Italian monk from the town of Siena, which itself was named for Senius, the son of Remus, who was the twin brother of Romulus (who killed Remus, much as Cain slew Abel); and St. Peter Canisius, a 16th century Jesuit.

The polling done by these colleges is non-sectarian and well regarded as a public service.

On Tuesday, May 4, Mayor Koch visited Albany and spoke with legislative leaders in both houses on behalf of redistricting reform through the selection of a nonpartisan commission to redistrict the state. Koch heads New York Uprising, a citizens group formed this year to fight gerrymandering, secure a balanced budget and tighten ethics rules in Albany. The organization intends to ask candidates for the legislature to sign pledges to support these reforms, and to publicize the names of both signers and nonsigners.

Enjoy the weekend.