Gov: New York 'Teetering on Verge of Insolvency', Yet Thousands of State Officials Earn Over $180,000 Per Year

Those wascally Democrats -- you never know what they'll come up with next. While Democrats complain endlessly about private sector salaries, consider the wages your tax dollars are subsidizing. But don't worry, maybe they'll give you a free bowl of soup someday when you're standing in the bread line.

...the Paterson administration [is] pressuring the Legislature to close the state's $9 billion budget deficit by the April 1 deadline... To the rescue is Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch with a plan that mimics the way New York City staved of bankruptcy in the 1970s...

* Borrowing $2 billion a year for three years
* Establishing a financial review board
* Giving the governor the power to make spending cuts to balance the budget without the Legislature's approval


"Objective number one is to achieve structural balance of our budget within a five-year period. It is not in my judgment possibly to cut $9.5 billion out of this budget this coming year," Ravitch said.

But in the offing is a new budget gap -- $300 million -- if state officials decide to cancel a deal with the company AEG to run the Aqueduct racino... "If the lottery division found AEG unlicensable, then we wouldn't be able to move forward," Paterson said.

Sources said the Paterson administration and company officials negotiated most of the day about whether to go forward with the Aqueduct project, which is under investigation by both federal prosecutors and the state inspector general... The probes forced the politically powerful Rev. Floyd Flake and rapper Jay-Z to quit the company Tuesday.

And if the proposed soda tax falls flat that would open another $500 million hole, which is why lawmakers are giving the Ravitch plan serious attention.

Ah, the vaunted soda tax. And the saturated fat tax. Because they want to control what you eat. They want taxes on CO2, the very air that you breathe. They want to control water in every form it exists. And they definitely want control of your body through socialized medicine.

Does any of this sound constitutional? Does any of this reflect the respect for the rights of the individual that the Framers found sacred?

No. Of course not. Today's Democrats are Statists, through and through, the last remnants of a failed strain of virulent Marxism for which we can begin inoculating the world in November.