In the next two months, Gov.
Andrew Cuomo and the Legislature will have to make very difficult decisions about how to close a $10 billion budget deficit — which state offices to shutter, which services and aid to cut, which employees to lay off and which taxes to raise. There are no easy fixes left.
Mr. Cuomo has vowed to balance the budget without borrowing or using any of the accounting gimmicks that helped dig New York into this hole. That’s good news.
But we are skeptical of his no-new-taxes pledge and his promise to let a surcharge on high earners expire. ...
... So the state’s most vulnerable citizens — the poor, the sick, the elderly and schoolchildren — will inevitably bear the largest burden. ...
None of these choices will be easy. Governor Cuomo has set up several commissions to recommend ways to cut costs and streamline government. We hope the process will promote an honest, transparent debate. New York can’t go on this way any longer.