Way To Go Cuomo

If we don't get a "Demonstration of Competence" from Congress soon, here's another good reason to bulldoze Washington, D.C. into the Potomac and let the states govern this country.

Courtesy of the New York Times

ALBANY — To the soundtrack of chanting protesters who draped banners from staircases and banged on the doors of the legislative chambers, lawmakers finished approving Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's budget early Thursday morning, making for the state’s first on-time spending plan in five years.

The State Capitol was a place of pandemonium well into the night, with officials scrambling to get the education and health care parts of the budget printed so lawmakers could vote on them. The Senate passed its last budget bill about 11:30 p.m., while the Assembly finished about 1 a.m.

The $132.5 billion budget, which hews closely to what Mr. Cuomo proposed two months ago, cuts year-to-year spending for the first time in more than a decade and imposes no major new taxes. The Legislature’s approval cemented a huge political victory for the governor, who praised legislative leaders early Thursday “for this demonstration of competence” — something for which Albany is not exactly known.

“This bipartisan and bicameral cooperation will give New Yorkers the good budget they deserve,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. “It was an invaluable public service for the state government to ‘function’ so well at this difficult time.”

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