Some Vampire (not Empire) State apologists are crowing about a ranking of state fiscal distress by the Pew Charitable Trust that purports to show that there are states in worse shape than New York, based on the size of their budget gaps and cuts. What that organization failed to consider, however, is that New York has the highest state and local taxes in the country, as a share of its residents’ personal income, save for (in some years) Alaska and Wyoming, where most of those taxes are on oil extractions not residents or businesses. You can see this for FY 2006 in the spreadsheet attached to this post. (New York does not have the worst financial reporting – other states are holding up detailed data from the 2007 Census of Governments). Those states in more trouble than New York could get out of it simply by raising their tax burden to New York’s levels. In FY 2006, New York’s state and local taxes absorbed 15.9% of the personal income of NYC residents, and 13.4% of the residents of the rest of the state, compared with 11.4% in California, 11.7% in New Jersey, 10.1% in Arizona, and a national average of 10.9%. Those states have budget crises because they have resisted tax increases; New York has already imposed them from already high levels.

Most other states could also borrow to get through the recession, and still have a state and local debt burden that sucks up far less of their tax dollars than New York, which has been borrowing massively in good times and bad. Despite that borrowing, most states also have infrastructure that is in better condition than New York’s. And while pension funds overseen by the State of New York are less underfunded than average, New York City pension funds are more underfunded despite increasingly massive amounts of money diverted from public services to the retired. If New York does not face an imminent fiscal disaster, credit goes to its citizens who groan under the nation’s heaviest tax burden, and in New York City also expect less in public services than many Americans. And on top of this, a fiscal disaster will be hitting here too, just a little later because the recession hit here later.

There are three things I don't want to hear from Albany and its apologists as disaster approaches. That everything is OK (Kruger). That those not in on the deals, favors and sell outs of the future have it good here, perhaps too good, thanks to the saints, heroes and geniuses in Albany (NGD). Or "isn't it terrible that the serfs are being sacrificed," from those who wouldn't consider having someone else share the burden, to make the mess seem like someone else's doing (Rev. Diaz).