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After years of debate, it now appears almost certain that a cap on local property taxes in New York will be enacted by the Legislature this year. Governor Cuomo is making a tax cap his first priority. The state Senate agrees. The Assembly has been firmly against previous tax-cap proposals by former Governors Pataki, Spitzer and Paterson. But in his remarks at the Governor?s State of the State address this week, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said his house will work with the new Governor to make a cap on property taxes a reality.

That pretty much settles the question as to whether there will be a tax cap in New York. The details are not yet known, and of course they will make all the difference. Will the cap apply to all units of local governments, as Governor Cuomo proposes, or only to public schools, as some others have suggested? Will it be a tightly limited cap, and thus force real restrictions on spending, or a loose fit that exempts major expenditures such as pensions? Answers to these and other questions will unfold over the next few weeks.

Then there is the matter of whether other issues will be negotiated in the same conversations as the tax cap. Speaker Silver suggested that rent control, a controversial issue in New York City, should be linked to discussion of property taxes because both issues relate to the affordability of housing. Governor Cuomo has not said much publicly about his position on rent control. That may change soon.

How did the tax cap move to the top of the agenda at the state Capitol? After all, New York is a relatively liberal state with many voters who support high spending and taxes. We have influential teacher unions and other interest groups that historically made even consideration of a limit on property taxes a non-starter.

The idea started gaining ground several years ago when E.J. McMahon of the Manhattan Institute suggested a tax cap as an alternative to the STAR property-tax relief program that Governor Pataki initiated back in 1997. STAR gives homeowners a direct offset of part of the cost of their school taxes. Because of that, as both common sense and academic research have suggested, STAR does not reduce the actual burden of school taxes. In fact, STAR may very well have brought school taxes higher than they otherwise would have been, because it increased the likelihood that homeowners would vote for their local school budgets. Under STAR, total school taxes have risen by more than twice the rate of inflation. Even many voters who consider public education a foundation stone for a civilized society now complain that their property taxes are too high.

Contrary to what we hear sometimes, elected leaders usually do respond to public demand, at least in broad form. So the political stars are now aligned for action on a tax cap this year.

What will that mean? If the cap really is effective at holding down costs, it means a choice between cutting services or reducing the unit cost of providing those services. Education and local government are labor-intensive, so employee pay and benefits make up most of the cost. One specific result of a tax cap will be that school districts and municipalities will increasingly have to make tough choices between the number of teachers and other employees they can employ, and the compensation they provide to each individual employee. In other words, if you have 100 employees and your revenues are increasing by 2 percent, your options include providing each person a 2 percent pay increase or using the new dollars to hire two additional people. That tradeoff will start showing up in discussions about classroom size, the number of cops and firefighters we employ, and elsewhere in debates about local budgets.

The likelihood of a tax cap being enacted this year also raises the stakes for reform of public pensions and other benefits. To go back to the classroom analogy, we are more and more confronting a tradeoff between student-teacher ratios, on the one hand, and the cost of public-sector pensions and health-care benefits on the other.

These debates will not be easy. That explains why a tax cap has not made it to the top of the agenda at the Capitol before now. If New Yorkers really want to see property taxes become more affordable, some tough choices have to be on the table.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, New York?s United States Senator for 24 years, spent a lifetime studying politics and government. He thought long and hard about ideas both liberal and conservative, and found good in both. His conclusion was this:

?The central conservative truth,? Moynihan wrote, ?is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.?

That relationship between politics and culture is worth keeping in mind as New Yorkers welcome their incoming governor, Andrew Cuomo. The new governor has to figure out how to eliminate a huge, $9 billion budget gap without sacrificing essential services or imposing punitive taxes, and keep the budget structurally balanced for years to come. The only way to do all of that is to change New Yorkers? expectations ? that is, to change our budgetary culture.

In the Empire State, we?ve become used to spending far more on education, Medicaid, community projects and other programs than other states do, even after you take into account relative wealth and need for public services. A 2006 study by scholars at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston examined what they called the level of ?expenditure effort? in all the states. This ?effort? measure compares what state and local governments actually spend, compared to the need for public services as indicated by poverty levels, the number of school-age children, and so on. Based on those measures, the overall need for public services in New York was found to be almost exactly the same as the national average. Yet our expenditure effort was 39 percent higher than average, and far higher than those in states such as Massachusetts, New Jersey and California.

To pay for an unusually generous level of spending, New York?s state and local governments impose a tax burden that is by far the highest in the country. This is based on an index that compares total income, sales, property and other taxes to the revenue-generating potential of the state?s economy.

Critics often observe that taxes and spending in New York are high because powerful interest groups push the Legislature in that direction. For example, during previous budget difficulties, the hospital workers? union has used multi-million-dollar, political campaign-style attack advertisements to scare elected leaders away from major changes in Medicaid.

But it?s also true that New York voters generally support high levels of public spending. The state is ideologically more liberal than most. We gave Barack Obama 63 percent of the vote in 2008, compared to 53 percent nationwide. And we all complain about property taxes, but each year voters approve most of the school budgets that represent the largest and fastest-growing source of those taxes.

Expenditures that would have been beyond imagining just a few decades ago are taken for granted today. Who would have thought that it would be commonplace for us to send $100,000-a-year nursing home bills to the government ? that school spending would reach $19,000 per pupil a year in the typical district ? or that retired public employees would receive pensions in many cases worth well over $1 million?

Limiting any of these kinds of expenditures represents a far greater challenge than merely balancing a budget. It means changing expectations ? changing the culture.

This is where the Moynihan prescription comes in. He was right: the political process can change a culture ? and save it from itself.

In fact, New York State already has an example to follow. In the early 1970s, a long-established pattern of irresponsible budgeting had pushed New York City into what appeared a permanent chasm between built-in spending and ongoing revenues. Bankruptcy loomed, and with it the potential for devastating damage to essential services.

But then a new governor, Hugh Carey, used a combination of official powers and personal vision to force action. The city?s immediate budget problems were solved ? and strict new controls imposed to assure that the days of rollover deficits and repeated crises would not return.

Over a period of years, Carey?s achievement changed the culture. New York City, long regarded as a black hole of fiscal irresponsibility, now has a budgetary culture that the state would do well to emulate.

Politics brought about that change in culture. Just maybe, a new governor can bring similarly dramatic change to the state Capitol.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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It?s the time of year when we try to take stock of the world. How well are we living the values and fulfilling the promise of humanity and its creator? How well do we as a society express those values and that promise in our public and private choices?

And, of course, it?s also that time of the year when we consider a related but more prosaic question: Who and what are on the Christmas list?

Well, whether you enjoy learning and ruminating about public affairs yourself, or have someone on your list who does, I have three words to offer you: Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Political writer Michael Barone described the late Senator from New York as ?the nation?s best thinker among politicians since Lincoln, and its best politician among thinkers since Jefferson.? That appropriately captures Moynihan?s place in the American pantheon. But it?s only a start.

Give yourself a treat and go further ? to your favorite local bookstore or online source, and pick up a book called ?Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary.? It?s a collection of Moynihan?s confidential memoranda to presidents and cabinet secretaries, entries in a personal journal, letters to powerful publishers, and his inimitable epistles from a little hideaway in Pindars Corners, Delaware County, to his constituents across the Empire State.

He was working in the White House on the day President Kennedy was killed in Dallas. He brought Ralph Nader to Washington, to push for making automobiles more safe ? ultimately saving untold thousands of lives. Moynihan was one of the first to suggest the federal government look seriously at the possibility of the earth?s climate changing as a result of carbon emissions. This was in 1969. He wrote a book called Pandaemonium, about the rising danger of international violence based in ethnic conflict and hatred. That was seven years before 9/11.

He wrote a now-famous memorandum outlining the widespread breakdown of black families and, with a depth of thought that now seems more scarce than ever, suggesting a new approach to helping the poor. Steven Weisman, a former New York Times writer who edited this new book of Moynihan?s letters, points out it?s important to understand that Moynihan himself came from a broken home of the kind he wrote about in that famous 1965 report on poor minority families. His father left the family when Pat was 10; he never saw him again. Moynihan wrote brilliantly about what he called the ?tangle of pathology? that tends to afflict poor families. He knew first-hand what he was talking about.

But what set him apart from most political figures was that he didn?t establish his opinions based only on his own experiences. He was as much respected in the social science academy as in the arena of practical politics. He reminded us that ?everyone is entitled to his own opinions ? but not to his own facts.?

Weisman writes that Pat Moynihan was ?the originator of powerful ideas that were also powerfully argued ? ideas that helped transform how Americans think about their country.? Whether the issue was helping the poor, or the nation?s health-care system, the federal budget, the uses and misuses of intelligence, national defense, reform of Social Security, racial divisions at home, ethnic and sectarian conflict around the world ? Moynihan was there, saying and writing things that no one else knew enough to say.

He was once described as the last of the New Deal liberals, and sometimes by others as a neoliberal or even neoconservative. He worked to help Lyndon Johnson advance his domestic agenda, and then did the same for Richard Nixon. Some today would find it hard to understand that the policies of a liberal Democrat and an avowedly conservative Republican might intersect. But they did. There, you could find Pat Moynihan.

Perhaps his most important observation for this modern age of extraordinarily divided and divisive politics was this:

?In some 40 years of government work,? Moynihan wrote, ?I have learned one thing for certain. The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.

?Thanks to this intersection,? Moynihan concluded, ?we?re a better society in nearly all respects than we were.?

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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President Obama has a commission hard at work identifying ways to cut $4 trillion from federal budget deficits over the coming 10 years. Incoming Governor Andrew Cuomo and his counterparts in other states are looking to trim spending on education, health care and other costs to deal with budget gaps in the billions. And in almost every city, town and school district, the dollar amounts may vary but the question remains the same: how can we balance expenditures that are rising sharply with revenues that are not?

Elected leaders at all levels are singing the budget blues partly because of the deep national recession that has not entirely gone away yet. But voters and taxpayers need to understand that these problems are not only the result of a downturn in the business cycle, and will not disappear when the economy gets back on track. A deep and probably long-lasting change in the nature of governmental budgets is underway. It?s going to have pretty dramatic effects on taxpayers, and on the services that government provides.

If you have a home mortgage, for example, you probably are glad to be able to deduct the interest on your income-tax return. President Obama?s debt-reduction commission is talking about the possibility of eliminating a number of tax exemptions, including the deduction for mortgage interest. The commission is also looking at a wide variety of reductions in future federal spending on Social Security, Medicare, other domestic programs and the military.

Governor Cuomo will present his budget plan to the Legislature early in the coming new year. Under existing formulas, school districts across New York could expect healthy increases in education assistance from the state to pay for employee raises, health and pension benefits, student transportation and so on. But the state is confronting the loss of $5 billion or so in extraordinary, temporary federal aid, as part of an overall gap in the range of 9 to $10 billion. The new governor is widely expected to propose eliminating most or all of the increased funding schools would otherwise receive next year. Almost every state service, from public safety and transportation to health and the environment, will likely see reductions as well.

At the local level, mayors and county executives and other municipal officials are talking about closing community centers, reducing numbers of police officers and firefighters, and eliminating a variety of services. They?re raising property taxes, and looking at new fees and other sources of revenue.

We live in a democracy where we elect the people who make these budgetary decisions. Most voters don?t want to hear about taxes going up or services being reduced. So the people running for office have an incentive to put off unpopular choices. In one way or another, at all levels, we?ve been doing just that for a long time now.

Some elected leaders are working to force attention and action on the new budgetary reality. There?s a common thread running through what you hear from those folks: We can?t continue operating government and public programs the way we always have. Then there are other elected officials whose main concern is ? keeping the status quo and doing things the way we?ve always done them.

That approach pretty much guarantees that the damage to essential services and the increases in taxes will be worse than they need be. Avoiding creative and tough choices means cutting the programs that are essential and effective along with or instead of those that are neither. We?ve already seen, for example, that when we don?t spend what it takes to keep bridges in good repair, we can lose important elements of our transportation system such as the Lake Champlain bridge that had to be demolished earlier this year. Demolition of that bridge is a useful picture to keep in mind.

At the national, state and local levels, the budget problems we?re facing today are going to be with us for many years to come. The assumption that we can just continue with the status quo and not really change our behavior can be thought of as an addiction to certain old ways. The 12-step approach to dealing with addiction starts with admitting that we have a problem, that things have become unmanageable. When you hear about big, unmanageable budget gaps facing your locality, the state or the nation, ask this question: Are we ready to recognize that we have a problem?

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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As New York and other states approach yet another year of bad news and tough decisions related to the budget, we already know many of the troubling implications resulting from spending cuts made this year and in 2009. School districts that had been told to expect healthy increases in state aid saw those new dollars taken away. Funding for parks, the State Museum, environmental programs and others has been reduced, as well. Some state employees will be losing their jobs, joining many of their neighbors from the private sector on the unemployment line.

All the budget difficulties carry another troubling implication that hasn?t attracted much attention. That?s the level of investment in roads, bridges, public university buildings and other elements of what we broadly call infrastructure.

It?s a classic scenario, repeated over and over. When times are good and the dollars are flowing, elected leaders announce big new projects ? stadiums, convention centers, office buildings and so on. At the same time, the resources can be found to fix the potholes, maintain the bridges, and replace buses and subway cars as they become obsolete.

Major new projects are typically funded as capital investments. The state or the local government borrows money the same way a homeowner takes out a mortgage to buy a home. Borrowing makes sense because the cost will be paid over many years, just as the product ? a home, a school building or a new bridge ? will be used for many years to come.

Here in New York, over the last decade our governors and legislators have borrowed something in the neighborhood of $10 billion to pay for expenses that were not long-term capital investments. This is the equivalent of taking out a mortgage not to buy a home, but to buy the groceries and pay the utility bill. And partly as a result of that borrowing, the state budget this year includes an increase of more than half a billion dollars in debt service payments.

Meanwhile, as we?ve been borrowing money to pay for operational expenses, we?ve neglected to provide many of the investments we should have made in our long-term assets. Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch has just issued a report pointing out that New York is already failing to keep up with the infrastructure investments we need to be making ? and that the problem is likely to get worse in the next few years.

Now, infrastructure investments sounds like something for someone else to worry about. Lieutenant Governor Ravitch reminds us that last year, state inspectors suddenly determined that the Crown Point Bridge, linking New York and Vermont across Lake Champlain, had to be closed for safety reasons. This year, the bridge was blown up to make room for its replacement. The new bridge will be completed sometime in 2011. Meanwhile, thousands of commuters whose livelihoods depended on that bridge are forced to make daily detours, some of them 100 miles, to continue earning a living.

And here?s the real point: the bridge across Lake Champlain was not a special case. There are others that we can assume we will have to shut down if we don?t put a certain amount of dollars into maintaining and replacing them. It?s a truism that politicians don?t like to spend money on maintenance because they don?t get any credit for it. So in the normal course of events, a continuation of serious budget problems means there?s a chance that infrastructure investments will remain inadequate for years to come.

Ravitch says the answer to this problem is clear: a multi-year capital investment strategy that sets realistic priorities, and balances competing regional demands. At the same time, the Lieutenant Governor says, the state has to find reliable revenues. What might those be? Perhaps new tolls on bridges around New York City, an increase in the state?s gasoline tax, or others. Making the environmental review process more streamlined, especially for projects like mass transit that have a positive environmental impact, should also be part of the solution, according to Ravitch. The environmental process for critical projects should not take longer than the actual construction period, he suggests.

Other areas of the budget, such as education and health care, tend to be more politically sensitive, and attract more attention when times are hard. Those issues are important, of course. But if we don?t take care of the highways and bridges, we can expect more critical problems right down the road.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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The budget problems confronting New York State, our local governments, and other states across the country are not going away any time soon. The national economy is recovering a bit, but likely to remain weak for most of the coming year. And even if employment and personal income grow more strongly than expected, tax revenues almost certainly will not go up enough to pay for the built-in spending projections for education, health care, public-employee compensation and other costs. The bottom line: a strong likelihood of continued, significant budgets gaps for years to come.

New York and other states will deal with these future budget gaps in part by raising taxes and fees. I don?t know what form those increases will take, only that history tells us they will happen, to one degree or another.

But experience also tells us that elected officials are sensitive to voters? objections about taxes. That means continued pressure to limit growth in spending. Not to cut spending overall, mind you. Here in New York, overall expenditures have risen by an average of a little more than 5 percent annually in recent years. That?s a little more than twice the rate of inflation. Cutting the growth to 3 or 4 percent a year would solve most of the long-term problem facing the state.

Cutting a percentage point or two off a 5 percent long-term growth rate might not sound like much. In the highly politicized world of government budgeting, it?s not easy ? and some would say it?s simply impossible if we want to preserve quality education and other services. So the question becomes: Can we find ways to spend tens of billions of dollars more effectively ? in our schools, our health-care system, criminal justice, transportation and so on?

Andrew Cuomo, who seems to be on his way to election as New York?s next governor, said this week one answer lies in what?s known as performance budgeting. The idea is to measure performance results and use those measurements in allocating resources that, by definition, are always limited. We already measure performance in some areas. Think, for example, of the school report cards that New York State has issued for every local school for more than a decade now. But when you look at all the services that are funded with tax dollars, performance measurement is still more the exception than the rule.

And if measuring governmental performance is still done only in limited ways, it?s even more unusual for elected officials to apply those measurements when they?re putting together the annual budget. Here in New York, we spend more than $50 billion a year on Medicaid, primarily to fund health care for the poor and nursing-home care for the elderly. The services, and the quality of services, that Medicaid supports vary from region to region, and from institution to institution. But we do almost nothing by way of using those billions of dollars to drive improvement in the health-care system. In many ways, it?s quite the opposite. Medicaid largely supports the status quo, thus making it more difficult to force changes that could improve quality and cost-effectiveness.

What are some other ways that performance budgeting might make government in New York work better? Well, how about criminal justice? We?ve had a long and sometimes bitter debate about the Rockefeller drug laws, which have sent tens of thousands of New Yorkers to long terms in state prison. A series of changes in recent years have loosened the drug laws, but not nearly enough for many critics. At the same time, Mostly through administrative decisions, the prison population in New York has dropped sharply over the last 10 years, from a high point of more than 71,000 to around 59,000 today. What lessons in public safety can we learn from the dramatic increases and then decreases in incarceration rates? And how can we put those lessons to work in budgeting for prisons, and for alternatives to incarceration such as drug treatment? I haven?t heard anyone in high office ask those questions.

So we can think of performance budgeting as the Holy Grail of government. On the one hand, like the Grail of literature and certain Christian traditions, performance budgeting is hard to find in real life. But also like the Holy Grail, performance budgeting is kind of an ultimate goal that we should continue to strive for. Measuring results and putting tax dollars to work where they?ll do the most good is plain common sense. Good for Andrew Cuomo for putting this idea on the table.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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?The rent is too damn high.? If you haven?t heard that phrase already, you are blessedly unaware of what?s been happening in New York State politics. New Yorkers who watched this week?s debate among the seven candidates for governor know that ?rent is too damn high? is now the name of a certified political party. Jimmy McMillan of Brooklyn, the party?s candidate for governor, grabbed much of the attention during the debate by repeatedly invoking the mantra about rent and its supposed impact on a wide variety of social problems.

Well, good for Mr. McMillan. But not so good for anyone hoping to gain useful insights into how we might elect leaders who can actually solve the state?s problems.

It?s not that the debate was entirely limited to entertainment value. In any election for governor of New York, something between 1 and 2 million people tend to vote on the Republican line. Voters who were watching this week?s debate saw the Republican candidate, Carl Palladino, come across as less adequately prepared for the office than any of his party?s nominees in recent memory. That was instructive. The debate also allowed voters to learn about principled minority-party candidates such as Warren Redlich on the Libertarian line and Howie Hawkins, representing the Green Party.

But all in all, it?s hard not to take a curmudgeonly view of this kind of event. Why can?t we have real substantive discussions between serious candidates? We?re not asking for the days of Lincoln and Douglas, when statesmen delivered well-reasoned arguments on key issues literally for hours at a time. But something more than 90- or 60-second answers would be helpful. My 10-year-old nephew, Harrison, was smart enough to conclude that Mr. McMillan and one or two of the others did more to divert attention from the serious candidates than add value to the conversation.

So, why is it that the nature of our politics seems to have been debased?

One reason is captured in the number of candidates on stage earlier this week. There was time when New Yorkers elected major national figures as governor ? Al Smith, Franklin Roosevelt, Tom Dewey, Nelson Rockefeller, Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo among them. Our political system was more restricted back then. We came to believe that was a bad thing and that the political process should be more open. We changed the nomination process so that, instead of what we called smoke-filled rooms filled with political bosses, candidates now are chosen in primary elections or, in the case of minor parties, simply by obtaining enough signatures on petitions.

Opening up the political process unquestionably has produced some good results. We have more women, more African-Americans and members of other minority groups in elected office. But we also may have lost something in reducing the ability of political party leaders to figure out who was ready for prime time and who was not. I suspect a fair number of Republicans in New York are wishing they?d ended up with their party leaders? candidate, Rick Lazio, rather than Mr. Palladino at the top of their ticket.

The dispersion of influence in politics is matched by a broadening of decision-making power in government. In the years after World War II, Tom Dewey was governor of New York. Just like governors more recently, Governor Dewey would send the Legislature his budget proposal in the middle of January. Nowadays, we expect that the Legislature will not complete the budget before April 1, when each fiscal year begins, and we?re not surprised if final action is months later. Back in Governor Dewey?s time, the Legislature typically passed the budget weeks before the start of the fiscal year, in late February or by early March.

It?s true that the state budget is much larger, and a lot more complicated, than it was half a century ago. But the main reasons budgets are so late now have more to do with the constellation of influential players in Albany today. Dewey would meet with legislative leaders when he was putting together his own budget, and reflect some of their priorities in his own plan. All in all, it was a time of more tightly held leadership.

Maybe there are ways that today we could enhance the ability of elected leaders to get things done within the context of a more inclusive modern political system. One way to start might be to get past the comical candidates talking about the rent, and instead to ask tougher questions of those we elect to high office.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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Thirty-seven years ago, the sociologist Daniel Bell published a book called ?The Coming of Post-Industrial Society.? Over the decades since then, we've come to talk about the technology revolution and the knowledge economy to describe the broad changes in the way we do business and make a living.

But there's a danger in that phrase, ?post-industrial society.? Yes, it's important for us to understand the things that are new ? the millions of jobs that depend on creation and processing of information, for instance. The danger comes into play if we think that, because there are important new sectors of the economy, other kinds of jobs don't matter anymore.

When we first started talking about the post-industrial society decades ago, New York boasted 1.5 million manufacturing jobs. Now, our industrial base has shrunk to less than a third of that number ?about 460,000, at last count.

There are two ways to look at that. One is to lament that we?ve lost a million manufacturing jobs. The other way to look at this is to ask: Where would we be without those 460,000 jobs we still have?

In New York, manufacturing is a high-value sector. In other words, the products made here require an unusually high level of intellectual value in terms of conceptual inspiration, technological design, engineering and skilled production. The Rockefeller Institute recently completed a study of manufacturing trends on behalf of the Manufacturing Research Institute of New York State. The largest single sector is computers and electronic products, which provided 65,000 jobs across the state in 2009. This is an especially high-value industry, with average salaries of $84,000. The computers and electronics business is particularly important in the Hudson Valley, where IBM makes its home.

Overall, those 460,000 manufacturing jobs across New York pay an average of more than $57,000 a year. Because wages for individual jobs are relatively high, manufacturing provides a major proportion of overall incomes across upstate New York. For example, in Delaware County, manufacturing represented 47 percent of private-sector wages in 2009. In Washington County, one in three private-sector wage dollars came from manufacturing. In Herkimer and Montgomery counties, it was one in four.

If you work for the state, in health care, education, or for a nonprofit group, it?s easy to forget the critical role that manufacturing jobs continue to play in our economy. But the term ?post-industrial society? doesn?t mean much to you if you work in a factory.

Because modern manufacturing is a high-value enterprise, the jobs it provides require higher skills than ever before. But it is still true that folks who don?t necessarily have a bachelor?s or master?s degree can make a very good living working in the plant at companies such as IBM, GE, and smaller companies like Hannay Reels in Westerlo, NY, or Finch Paper in Glens Falls. Manufacturing jobs are unusual in creating good middle-class opportunities, including good benefits, that are less often found in many other jobs.

The obvious goal, then, is to keep as much of our existing manufacturing activity as we can, at the same time we look for exciting new opportunities like the Global Foundries computer chip plant being developed in Saratoga County. For every job at a new, high-tech plant like that one, we have dozens of long-established jobs, including those at factories that can be somewhat controversial because of concerns about potential environmental or other issues.

Take the LaFarge cement plant in Ravena. The plant provides 200 jobs in a community that has its share of economic challenges. Like most manufacturing facilities, it supports a substantial number of other jobs in companies that supply the plant with goods and services. The LaFarge company wants to build a new, more modern plant that would allow it to expand production while reducing its environmental impact. Some local residents oppose the expansion because of concerns about emissions of mercury and other pollutants.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation just announced it has approved an extension of LaFarge?s operating permit for its current plant. That decision itself generated some controversy from local environmental groups. And there?s no question that health and environmental concerns are important. The state laws that govern these issues call for a balance between maintaining a healthy environment and maintaining a healthy economy, so working people can find good jobs. DEC?s action to date regarding the LaFarge plant may be a good example. For better or worse, the reality is that any factory we lose is unlikely to be replaced. The best way to promote a healthy manufacturing sector is to preserve and build from the base we have now.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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If you don?t happen to read the New York Daily News, you may have missed an interesting development in this statewide election year. It was a Labor Day op-ed column by Andrew Cuomo, the incumbent attorney general and Democratic candidate for governor.

Under the headline ?Public employee unions must make sacrifices for sake of the state,? the attorney general wrote that ?our state government is functionally bankrupt. For too long the state has lived far beyond its means.?

To get the state back on track, Cuomo wrote, we need what he calls ?painful but necessary measures to get our fiscal house in order.? As an example, he cited the leadership that Governor Hugh Carey provided during the mid-1970s when New York City and the state itself went through a severe financial crisis. The state recovered through shared sacrifice that included agreements by New York City municipal unions to go without pay raises and to invest their pension fund dollars in city bonds that carried unusually high levels of risk.

?Today is another moment in time,? the attorney general wrote, ?where the public sector (along with everyone else) must make sacrifices for the common good.?

State and local government workers have made out relatively well in recent years, compared to many of their neighbors in the private sector. There have been tensions between the public-employee unions and Governor Paterson because the state made a commitment to pay raises that the governor later said were no longer affordable in a time of budget crisis. The unions, reflecting the wishes of their members, refused the governor?s request for givebacks. The result was that tens of thousands of state workers enjoyed 4 percent raises this year, at a time when inflation was low and private-sector employers in many cases were laying workers off or reducing wages and benefits. In local governments and school districts, too, most folks have done better with raises and benefits in recent years than those who work for private companies or nonprofit organizations. Meanwhile, public pensions and health-care benefits are increasing taxpayer costs by hundreds of millions of dollars annually. None of this is the fault of state employees ? of whom I?m one, by the way ? but that doesn?t change the nature of the problem.

On the other hand, the unions that represent public employees say state workers have already suffered. There?s some truth in that. State agencies have eliminated more than 9,000 jobs over the last two years, so in many offices there are fewer people trying to do the same amount of work. State workers have gone through a lot of uncertainty and worry over furloughs or layoffs. Worst of all, many rank-and-file state employees will say, those at the top of the organization often seem to have little interest in workers? efforts to make public services run well and cost-effectively.

Attorney General Cuomo is not the only candidate calling on public employees to share in the sacrifices that hard times require. Republican candidates Carl Paladino and Rick Lazio have made their own proposals. It?s unusual, though, for a Democratic candidate to go out of his way to make this an issue.

The traditional understanding is that public-sector unions are a key part of the base ? often the single most important part of the base ? for liberal causes and the Democratic party. But when resources are scarce, it becomes more complicated to define a good liberal or progressive position. This year, the state budget cut funding for local schools, for health care, for the State University, and for human services at the same time those pay raises took effect. And the state imposed higher taxes on consumers? clothing purchases and on businesses.

So, what are the proper choices for budgeting in this kind of environment? Assuming that there will be both revenue increases and spending cuts, what areas should be protected most? What can the state do to reduce costs without cutting services for the needy and the middle class? Where can we find efficiencies that might make it possible to expand essential services at a time when they?re needed most, and to avoid tax increases when they?re least desirable?

A statewide election year should bring real, pointed discussion of these and other questions. To the credit of the candidates in this year?s races, it looks as though we may actually have a substantive debate in New York this year. That would be good, wouldn?t it?

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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It?s no longer a surprise when we hear that there?s been a shooting in an urban neighborhood and that drugs were involved somehow. Maybe it was one dealer or gang fighting another. Maybe it was a transaction gone bad. Illegal drugs, guns and death ? a sadly recurring combination in this region and throughout the country.

In recent months, the interconnections between drugs and violence have become dramatically more dangerous along the U.S. border with Mexico and in key regions of our big southern neighbor. Last week in Monterrey, a city of more than 3 million in northeastern Mexico, there was a shootout just outside a private school that?s popular with Americans who live and work south of the border. And this week, 72 migrants from Central and South America who were on their way to the United States were massacred by a drug gang at a ranch 90 miles from the border.

The Mexican government has been engaged in a war against organized crime since December 2006. An estimated 23,000 people have died during this long battle against gangs that make their money off drug trafficking and other illegal activities. Twenty-three thousand killed, in less than four years. Most of these were gangsters who were slaughtered by rivals. But many have been innocent bystanders. And increasingly, the gangsters are targeting government officials and candidates for office. Just before state-level elections in early July, two candidates for governor were murdered. The Economist magazine reports that one mayoral candidate found a decapitated corpse outside his home. On Election Day, four dead bodies were found hung from bridges, in what authorities interpreted as a message telling voters who?s really in control of much of the country.

What does all of this violence in Mexico have to do with the United States? One connection is in the commercial activity that the violence is intended to control. Gangs that want to control the drug trade with the U.S. are responsible for a large share, if not the largest share, of the violence and disruption.

In New York and across the country, elected leaders and others have been engaged in a long process of trying to figure out what to do about illegal drugs. Nelson Rockefeller had one solution back in the 1970s ? enacting tough laws and long jail sentences for anyone convicted of selling or possessing significant amounts of cocaine, heroin and other substances. We undertook what we called a war on drugs so that we could protect our children from addiction and our communities from a rising tide of violent crime.

Addiction is still with us. The crime rate has gone up and back down with no apparent connection to the Rockefeller drug laws. Legislatures in New York and elsewhere have concluded that the way to win the war on drugs may have more to do with providing addiction treatment and keeping impressionable young adults out of prison. The laws have started to move in that direction, but so far it?s only a start.

As we survey the situation in our own homes, streets and neighborhoods, it may be useful also to bring developments along our southern border into the equation. Why are gangs in Mexico and southern border cities interested in killing each other? So they can control the flow of drugs to customers in the north. How many of those 23,000 killings down in Mexico could we attribute to the demand for drugs in our community? There?s no way of knowing, but very likely some.

Adding a new element to the discussion of drug policy in the United States and in New York doesn?t make that debate any simpler. But it may add some urgency. If nothing else, this nation has a strong interest in limiting the power that criminal gangs hold over communities not far from our southern border. We know that the border with Mexico is porous. It?s one thing to have illegal immigrants and illegal drugs coming over the border. Now there is the possibility that major communities will simply be taken over by criminal gangs, and that an even higher level of drug-related violence will follow. That should add even more urgency to the debate over drug policy in this country.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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So New York State now has a budget in place, finally. What does it mean for folks who depend on state services, for taxpayers and for state workers?

Probably the first thing to notice is that, considering the dramatic financial challenges facing the state, this is a relatively status-quo budget. According to the state comptroller?s office, the total spending of $136 billion is up about $5 billion, or 4 percent, from last year. The governor?s budget office counts the dollars a bit differently and estimates the overall increase at closer to 2 percent. Either way, spending is going up, not down.

And yet it?s also true that there are significant cuts in major programs. The biggest is the reduction in aid to school districts. That?s not surprising, because public schools are by far the biggest recipients of state tax dollars ? so if you are looking to close a budget gap, it?s hard to avoid education. Under the pre-existing school-aid formula, aid to local schools would have gone up by well over $1 billion this year. The adopted budget eliminates that increase and instead cuts school aid by several hundred million dollars.

There are also reductions in various programs funded by Medicaid. That?s the huge area of the budget that provides health coverage for lower-income individuals, nursing homes for the elderly and disabled, and care for the mentally disabled. And yet, despite some cuts to individual programs, overall Medicaid spending will still go up.

There?s a further complication in trying to figure out this year?s budget. Congress is now planning to approve billions of dollars in continued stimulus funding for states across the country. That additional aid will restore some of the planned cuts in Medicaid, and probably some of the reductions in education as well. It?s too early to know exactly what the impact of the federal assistance will be. Clearly, one result is that New York and other states feel less pressure to make structural reforms that could help eliminate future budget gaps.

As usually is the case, the adopted budget leaves another big problem for the state to tackle next year. The comptroller?s office says the 2011 gap will likely be around the same size as the one the state faced this year. But many of the actions the Governor and the Legislature took to solve this year?s problem will not be available again next January. So whoever wins the governor?s race this November will come into office with another big budget gap right at the top of the agenda.

If misery loves company, the good news is that pretty much every other state is facing the same problems as the Empire State. The political class here in New York likes to think that we?re different from everyone else. But there may be some useful lessons in what other states are doing.

For example, in Wisconsin, Governor Jim Doyle and the state legislature adopted a budget that included more than $600 million in cuts to Medicaid. Relative to the size of the program in Wisconsin, that?s a much larger package of reductions than was enacted here in New York. To make those cuts while preserving and even expanding services, the elected leaders in Wisconsin took the choices out of the political environment and put the state Health Department in charge of the detailed decisions. The department, in turn, invited participation by advocates of all the many programs funded by Medicaid, as well as by the public.

The result was very different than the outcome in most other states. Rather than simply cutting services and reducing payments to doctors, policymakers in Wisconsin adopted a variety of changes that are intended to drive dollars toward more effective health care practices. The state will save an estimated $4 million by limiting payments for unnecessary Caesarean sections. Hospitals will be required to submit plans to reduce the rate at which patients return with the same illness, creating stronger incentives to deliver the right care the first time.

Wisconsin may or may not be going about Medicaid reform the best way. Only time will tell. But that?s the point: When New York and other states are facing historic budget problems, we need to try new things. States are assigned the role of being laboratories of democracy, where we experiment with new approaches that later may become national policy. With another big budget gap approaching next year, we?ll have more opportunities to look for new, more successful ways to provide public services at an affordable cost.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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Do you own a home or business property in New York? Are you troubled by the cost of property taxes? If you answered yes to the first question, changes are you also answered yes to the second. For years, critics of New York?s property taxes have pushed the idea of a legal limit on how much property taxes could go up each year. Until recently, it seemed the kind of idea that had no chance of passage in the state Legislature. Now, it looks like that may be changing before too long.

There?s no question the problem is a real one. The Tax Foundation, an independent nonprofit group based in Washington, calculates property tax burdens in communities across the country. When you calculate homeowners? tax payments as a percentage of home value, New York is home to every single one of the 10 counties with the highest property taxes in the nation. Look at other good measures ?property taxes on the average home, or taxes as a share of household income ? and again New York is right at the top of all the states, along with New Jersey.

That explains why elected leaders and candidates talk so much about property taxes. Former Governor George Pataki created the STAR program to provide homeowners with some relief from high school taxes. But research by a variety of experts shows the STAR program makes the problem worse, by reducing voter resistance to annual increases in school taxes. In any case, we know that property tax costs continue to jump, year after year. Just as one measure, total property taxes across New York State rose by 27 percent from 2000 to 2008 ? after accounting for inflation.

Across the country, more than 30 states have imposed statutory or constitutional limits on property taxes. Five years ago, E.J. McMahon of the Manhattan Institute?s Empire Center for Policy Research issued a detailed proposal for a cap on school property taxes in New York. He suggested a maximum of 4 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less, with voters at the school-district level having the power to approve higher or lower limits. In 2008, a commission appointed by former Governor Eliot Spitzer endorsed a similar tax cap as part of a broader set of proposals that also included a property tax circuit breaker linked to household income, and major steps to help school districts and local governments control costs.

There is strong opposition to the idea of a limit on property tax increases. Unions representing teachers and other public employees, as well as many voters, argue that more spending on education is the right choice, and that caps on property taxes will limit resources. Not surprisingly, experience in other states shows that tax caps do indeed limit spending. Until recently, it seemed a safe bet that such opposition would leave tax cap proposals in Albany gathering dust and eventually fading away.

But that picture is changing dramatically, right now. A statewide campaign for the governor?s office is getting underway. For the first time in state history, all of the leading candidates have endorsed a cap on property taxes. The candidate who holds a wide lead in all of the polls, Democratic Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, is making a property tax cap a major issue ? even going so far as to hold a public rally with the Republican county executive in Nassau County on Long Island.

This development changes the political landscape significantly. A month ago, if you had to bet on the eventual outcome, the safe bet would have been no property tax cap in New York anytime in the near future. Now, with strong support from Cuomo as well as Republican candidates Rick Lazio and Carl Paladino, it?s almost a certainty that the next governor will make the tax cap a priority in 2011. History shows that a newly elected governor, especially one who knows how to use the bully pulpit of the office, has a good chance of winning legislative approval on his priority issues.

If a cap on property taxes does become law, the big question will be: What kind of cap might the Legislature approve ? one with lots of exceptions for certain spending, or a tighter limit that will please many taxpayers while restraining resources for public services? It?s too early to say. But there?s no question about one thing: A property tax cap is now back on the table in Albany.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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What could be better than a nice bike ride on a beautiful summer day?

How about eight straight days of biking ? across New York State, from Buffalo to Albany, with 500 other, obviously crazy folks?

That?s what you get when you sign up for the Cycling the Erie Canal tour sponsored by the nonprofit group Parks and Trails New York. I had the wonderful opportunity to do the tour last week with my daughter and son. It was a tough challenge, daunting at times. But if you?re looking for a new idea for a great week?s vacation, think about this one.

The 400-mile tour starts in downtown Buffalo. That?s right, 400 miles, an average of 50 or so over each of eight days. Now, not all of us have quadriceps made of steel. (Quads are the large muscles on the front of your thighs, and they?re especially important for going up hills on a bike.) For those of us who haven?t trained as we should, the good news is that the biking on the tour is mostly flat, along the Erie Canal path. Not entirely, mind you. And in July there are some hot days. That water bottle gets a lot of action. Oh, and then there?s the occasional rain, with chance of thunderstorms. Our party of three riders got caught out in the backroads west of Seneca Falls when a pretty good storm hit one afternoon. The organizers of the Parks and Trails New York tour promise they?ll help you when emergencies arise. And they keep their word. A van with a friendly volunteer driver ? the sag wagon, as it?s known ? picked us up and brought us safely to the designated campground for the night.

There?s all manner of wonderful history to absorb on the tour, regarding the great role the Erie Canal played in building the modern economy not only of the Empire State but of America generally. When it opened in 1825, the canal made it possible for farmers and industries to ship foods, production materials and finished goods far more cheaply than before. Great cities such as Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse ? and dozens of smaller towns, from Albion to Waterford ? arose to serve the commerce along the canal. And all that trade helped make New York City the global business capital it still remains today.

Of course, we?ve long since passed the days when the foundation of the economy rested on mule-driven canal freighters. The long, continual and painful decline of the former Erie Canal towns is partly a contributor to and partly a product of the broader stagnation of the regional economy throughout Upstate New York.

On Thursday night, the tour group camped at Fort Stanwix National Monument in Rome. Friday morning, we mounted the bikes again and rode the mile or so from the center of the city out to the path along the canal. We discovered you can ride your bike down the middle of the main streets in Rome, New York, without worrying much about traffic. For folks on bicycles, that?s great. But it?s not a good sign about the economic vitality of the area. And you can do pretty much the same in many of the communities along the canal route.

One of the biggest questions facing elected leaders and voters in New York, during this election year, is how to restore the Upstate economy. The most promising ideas include building on the strengths of our colleges and universities, public and private. Lots of evidence indicates that higher education centers are playing increasingly important roles as the global economy centers more on knowledge and information. Cities such as Utica and Schenectady have made a point of working to attract new Americans from other nations, recapturing some of the population and vitality that drained away to other regions of the country. The tourism and hospitality industry itself can play a small but useful supporting role, as the Erie Canal bike tour itself demonstrates.

It?s not likely that smaller communities such as Rome and Lockport ? let alone larger cities such as Buffalo and Schenectady ? will ever recapture all of the jobs and people they?ve lost over half a century. But, it?s worth looking for the right lessons as to how we interrupt and start to reverse the decline that now, unfortunately, is often taken for granted.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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The New York State budget is almost complete. All the major appropriation bills have passed both houses of the Legislature. The only piece not yet in place is the revenue bill ? a billion dollars or so of increases in the sales tax on clothing, and other tax and fee increases, that would be required to balance the spending already approved.

So why is the Legislature going home for the Fourth of July weekend without passing the revenue bill yet? It?s not just because taxes are unpopular, although of course they are. No, the increase in the sales tax on clothing, higher taxes on many upper-income individuals and other elements of the revenue bill have been agreed upon by the majorities in the Senate and Assembly. The final piece of the budget is essentially being held hostage by other issues.

One of those is the question of a billion dollars in extra federal funding for Medicaid. There?s no way to know right now whether that will come through. It?s no surprise that a potential billion-dollar hole in the budget is cause for concern.

But there?s one unlikely element in the stalemate over a final budget agreement: for the first time in state history, the big issue holding up final action on the budget is a proposal from the State University of New York.

This is a surprise because, like many other state universities across the country, SUNY traditionally has not been a particularly influential force in the Legislature. Public higher education is often described as the balance wheel of state budgets. In other words, when tax revenues are growing strongly and there?s plenty to go around, some will spin off to the university. When revenue is down, higher education is among the first to be cut.

We?ve seen that reality here in New York, over and over. In each of the past two years, Governor Paterson was confronted with sizable budget gaps in the middle of the fiscal year. State law allows the governor to make unilateral cuts in spending for state agency operations, including the State University. The governor does not have the authority to make similar cuts in state aid to school districts, or the Medicaid program. That means budget reductions fall disproportionately on SUNY and other state agencies.

Former Governor Eliot Spitzer appointed a high-level commission of impressive individuals to study the finances and the future of our higher education system back in 2007. The commission concluded that a stronger SUNY could help make New York State a stronger, more competitive force in the 21st century global economy. But to do that, the commission said, both SUNY and the City University of New York should have more flexibility to make their own decisions about tuition, use of their property and development. That proposal is the issue now on the table at the Capitol, as the Legislature works to complete this year?s budget.

In the Albany area, the University at Albany?s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering has given the region an enormous economic boost by attracting hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate investment and helping to create thousands of good jobs. Other SUNY campuses are major players in their regional economies. Across the country and throughout the world, economic experts agree that higher education is more important than ever not only for its basic purpose of building knowledge, but for putting knowledge to work in creating economic growth ? just the thing so many communities in Upstate New York need badly.

Western New York, the Buffalo area, is especially in need of an economic booster shot. The state University at Buffalo is one of the most promising contributors to a brighter future for that economically troubled region. And community leaders in Buffalo are pressing their legislative delegation to make SUNY flexibility a priority. Legislators from other regions, including Senator Neil Breslin from Albany County, are supporting the effort as well. For anyone who understands the economic power of higher education, it makes a great deal of sense.

For once the budget endgame at the Capitol is not about more favors for powerful special interests, or more spending for legislative pork. Instead, it?s about the direction of our public higher-education system and the future of the state?s economy. That?s a debate well worth having, and worth resolving, before the Legislature finishes its work for the year.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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The mess caused by the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico gets worse and worse. And like the last one, the original catastrophe isn?t the only problem.

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and other areas along the Gulf coast in 2005, the immediate damage from the storm surge was enormous. Arguably the worst natural disaster in American history, Katrina caused an estimated 1,500 deaths and more than $80 billion in property damage along 150 miles of coastline in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

But once the hurricane water receded, the damage had only just begun. A study of the governmental response by Richard Nathan and other scholars at the Rockefeller Institute of Government described the problem this way:

?In the end, Katrina and Rita produced two disasters. The first was the immediate crisis created when the hurricanes made landfall. The second was the difficulty various levels of government had in working together to respond to the crisis. This was the more dangerous of the two because the inability to work well together spilled over into the recovery efforts, with ordinary citizens caught in the middle. The long-term impact could be the haphazard rebuilding of the devastated communities, meaning mistakes will be repeated, segments of the population will be left out, and a rare opportunity to reshape a region for the better will be lost.?

Those fears proved to be well-founded. Five years after Katrina, rebuilding has been haphazard. Much of the population has been left behind, and thousands of people left their homes for good because they didn?t see much choice. All three levels of government that were supposed to respond to the hurricanes ? federal, state and local ? had trouble figuring out how to deal with each other and solve the problems on the ground.

If Katrina was the worst natural disaster this country has ever seen, the ever-expanding BP oil contamination is now the worst environmental mess. And now that there?s a new disaster in the Gulf, that old problem of getting different layers of government to work together is at play once again.

The Wall Street Journal took an in-depth look at the response to the explosion at BP?s Deepwater Horizon oil rig. The Journal reports that federal officials changed their minds on important decisions regarding the response, sometimes more than once. Chemical dispersants to break up the oil were first approved, then ruled to be too toxic, and then reapproved. The administration criticized and delayed, and then partially approved , a proposal by Louisiana state officials to build up eroded barrier islands to keep the oil from the main shoreline.

The governor of Alabama ordered a purchase of heavy-duty containment boom from the Persian Gulf, on the other side of the world, to protect the coastline in his state. When it arrived, the Coast Guard gave the protective material to Louisiana instead. Within days, oil was washing up on the Alabama shore that the booms had been intended to protect.

There have been other complications in the response to the explosion and massive oil release. Of course, with a disaster this size, that?s completely to be expected. Admiral Thad Allen of the Coast Guard, who leads the federal government?s response, says: ?We have to learn to be more flexible, more adaptable and agile.?

You could say the same thing about almost any one of the important jobs that our federal, state and local governments do. At its root, the BP disaster is a problem related to the way we balance our need for energy with our concern for the environment. There no good choices there, at least in the short run. There are big environmental questions not only about oil but about coal, natural gas, nuclear power, even renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power. Some say now that we simply have to stop drilling for oil, at least out in the ocean. There?s a good case to be made for reducing our petroleum use. But there are complicated and imperfect choices to be made about those other sources of energy, and about the best ways to encourage conservation. These are not just policy or ideological questions. They?re also managerial issues that require careful thinking and the ability to learn from mistakes.

Sometimes we do learn. Sometimes we don?t. After the last disaster in the Gulf, some thoughtful observers proposed new ways for the president to make sure that the federal government was working effectively with local and state officials ? as well as those in the private sector ? to produce a better response to the next disaster. Well, the next disaster is here now. What did we learn from Katrina? In terms of responses that have actually changed, it?s a hard question to answer. Maybe we?ll learn more this time.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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Two big issues are in the news this week. Nationally, it?s the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Here in New York, it?s the question of whether state parks will be open for the Memorial Day weekend and through the summer.

What do these two stories have in common? In one sense, both are ultimately about the same thing: The reality that we need to make choices, even when we might not want to.

Let?s start with the oil mess down in the Gulf. Five weeks after an explosion at the BP corporation?s deep-water well, total contamination may be surpassing the Exxon Valdez as the worst oil spill in American history, according to government estimates.

In conversations on public radio and elsewhere, a lot of people are suggesting that this catastrophe proves we need to stop offshore drilling, and drastically reduce our use of petroleum. The reasons go beyond the risk of oil spills and include concerns such as global warming and the rise of powerful, dangerous petro-states such as Iran. There?s something to that argument. But how could we achieve sharp reductions in petroleum consumption?

Keep in mind this point: Oil is our biggest single source of energy. In New York, at last count, it made up 37 percent of all energy use, according to the state Energy Plan. Natural gas was the second-most important source, at 30 percent. Nuclear power was third. Coal, hydropower and other sources each made up less than 10 percent of our overall energy use.

If we want to dramatically scale back petroleum consumption, we?re going to have to find ways to make sharp reductions in overall energy use, or very big increases in use of natural gas and renewable resources. For some perspective on that, New York State has already committed to reduce electricity use by 15 percent below forecast levels, and increase our use of renewable electrical generation sources, by the year 2015. These are good goals that would move us a small part of the way toward the longer-term goal of significant reduction in oil consumption. But as of now, New York State has not figured out how to meet even these initial goals.

It?s hard to do that in a democratic society. Many of us like the freedom to live far from our place of employment, and drive an hour each way at the start and end of the working day. Some people don?t drive as far, but do enjoy driving cars that use a lot of gas. Even some people who think of themselves as environmentalists are in that category. And some other people who call themselves environmentalists don?t want to see windmills near their summer homes, even though more wind power could be good for the environment. A lot of folks would like to close nuclear power plants like the one at Indian Point in Westchester County. But doing that anytime soon would certainly increase the amount of oil and coal we burn for electricity. Tough choices.

Now, on to the state parks. Again we have a failure to make choices. Governor Paterson sent the Legislature a budget plan back in January that would have kept the parks open. But the governor?s budget reflected the tough realities the state faces. Those realities include revenues that have been hurt by the national recession, and rising costs for schools, health care and public-employee benefits. Governor Paterson outlined his choices for closing a $9 billion budget gap, and has asked the Legislature to respond with its plan. So far, the Senate and Assembly have been gridlocked because voters and influential interest groups are telling them not to do anything controversial ? not to reduce education funding, not to transfer dollars from the Environmental Protection Fund, not to approve the governor?s proposal for a new tax on sugary drinks.

At almost the last minute before the Memorial Day weekend, the Legislature reportedly was agreeing to a plan to keep the parks open. If the early indications are correct, the choice is an agreement to shift some funding from the Environmental Protection Fund into the parks system. The two are related, obviously, so there?s some logic to the move. Better late than never. But if you had to make your summer vacation plans before now, you may have gone elsewhere.

Choices. The people we elect need to make them. And that means voters need to let the elected people know that we understand the need for choices, too.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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Voters in school districts across New York went to the polls this week to turn thumbs up, or thumbs down, on their school budgets. The voting came amidst tough times for many taxpayers. Statewide, we?ve lost 300,000 private-sector jobs in the last two years. In every community, there are people who have seen their working hours reduced, gone without a raise or taken a pay cut, if they have managed to hold onto a job at all.

And taxpayer concern about school taxes, in particular, has seldom been higher. There?s good reason for that. By every common measure, the overall tax burden in New York is the highest or among the highest in the country. When you look at property taxes, in particular, the top 10 counties in the nation, in terms of property taxes as a percentage of home value, are all in New York. That?s right. When you measure property taxes relative to home value, every one of the 10 counties in the nation with the heaviest property tax burden is in New York State. More specifically, they?re all in Upstate New York, where property values in many communities have been stagnant for years but the overall cost of property taxes has continued to increase.

So this was the environment as voters made decisions on their school budgets this week. And what was the result?

Surprisingly, it was an overwhelming yes to the proposals that school boards put on the ballot. Statewide, voters approved 92 percent of budget plans, according to the New York State School Boards Association.

What does this tell us? Certainly one interpretation is that strong supporters of public education are simply more likely to be aware of the school budget vote, and to make sure they get to the polling place. The very nature of the voting contributes to this.

Most districts hold the voting in school buildings. That?s convenient for school employees, and for parents who are bringing kids to school, or picking them up at the end of the day. Most of the information that voters receive about the budget proposal comes from the school board and the administration, which obviously have an interest in the outcome.

On the other hand, in most communities there are also a lot of voters, many of them older folks with no children in school, who make sure that they get to the polling place to vote ?no? every year. And anyone who thinks that taxes are too high, and schools spend too much, is free to organize like-minded taxpayers in opposition. That?s democracy in action.

After looking at that 92 percent approval rate, it?s worthwhile to look at a couple more numbers. Over the last decade, school budgets have generally provided spending increases averaging 6 percent or more a year. Total property tax increases were generally twice the level of inflation, or more.

But this year, school boards were much more conservative with the budgets they sent to the voters. The average spending increase was around 1.5 percent ? far below the recent average. The typical property-tax increase is down substantially, as well. It?s pretty clear that school board members in most communities took voter concerns and the tough economic times into consideration when they made their spending decisions. That?s democracy in action, too.

I served as a technical adviser to a statewide Commission on Property Tax Relief a couple of years ago. During public hearings around the state, including one in this region, I heard homeowners and business owners alike express deep concern over the relentless march of ever-higher property taxes. That sentiment won?t go away based on one year of relatively modest increases. School districts will face tough budget conditions again next year, and very likely for some years to come.

In the long run, that presents us with some choices. Voters can approve significant increases in property taxes every year, to pay for above-inflation spending increases. Or, we can demand reductions in staffing and programs, so spending and taxes don?t have to go up. A third choice is to look for ways to improve educational quality while limiting the cost. More and more observers are talking about the need to make that choice, by introducing basic changes in the delivery of educational services. If we don?t do that, you can pretty much guarantee we?ll see even higher property taxes in the years to come.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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The unions representing most New York State employees have won their case in court ? at least for now ? in their challenge to the furloughs that Governor Paterson wants to put in place. It?s unclear whether that temporary victory for the unions will become permanent; we?ll know more later this month. So that leaves a bigger question: What will the Governor and the Legislature do now, to close the state?s big budget gap?

Let?s try to make some sense of this by taking a step back. The Governor said he needs to find $250 million worth of savings from the state workforce. That?s a small portion of the overall $9 billion gap between projected revenues and expenditures for the current fiscal year. But there?s no denying that with $250 million here, and $250 million there, pretty soon you?re talking real money even in New York.

That $9 billion budget gap arises because the national recession has limited growth in tax revenues, and because baseline expenditures would go up by two or three times the rate of inflation if the budget were left on autopilot. What are the options the Governor and the Legislature can consider to eliminate the gap?

The state provides a wide variety of programs and services, but there are three cost centers, if you will, that matter most. First is aid to public schools. That alone represents almost 30 percent of all the state?s non-federally funded spending. Second is health care, including the state?s $51 billion Medicaid program. And the third big area in the budget is the state payroll, including benefits for employees and retirees. These three ? education, health care and the workforce ? are such large pieces of the overall pie that you can?t really control spending if you don?t do anything in those areas.

Most people analyzing this issue start either with a presumption that the state wastes a lot of the taxpayers? dollars, and thus spending can be cut substantially; or the conviction that we can and should raise taxes to solve the problem. The reality is that every major budget gap the state has faced in recent decades has been closed with some combination of reductions from baseline spending and increases in revenues. You can pretty much count on that being the approach this time, too.

The Governor wants to create a new tax on sugary soft drinks, and raise the cigarette tax by another dollar a pack. The Legislature doesn?t like the soda tax. So other taxes are under consideration, including an increase in the income tax on individuals with incomes above $200,000 a year, to go on top of an increase that was enacted as part of last year?s budget. It?s too early to say what will happen, except that some tax increases in Albany this year are almost inevitable.

But it?s unlikely that tax increases alone will be enough to close a $9 billion gap. For some perspective, that $9 billion hole is equivalent to about 17 percent of the state?s General Fund. One thing Governor Paterson and most of the Legislature agree upon is that cutting spending ? at a minimum, reducing spending from the increases that would automatically occur under current law ? has to be part of the solution.

So that brings us back to those three big areas of the budget: Education, health care, and the workforce. The Governor?s budget proposal would cut aid to local schools substantially, and reduce Medicaid spending by hundreds of millions. If one of those three big areas ? such as the workforce ? is not part of the equation, then that may put more of the burden on the others, education and health care. The math is pretty straightforward.

If spending is going to be reduced, one important goal is to cut the cost per unit of service, rather than cutting services. Layoffs of state employees, of teachers and other employees at the school district level, probably mean reduction of services. If you have fewer teachers, or fewer clerks working at the Department of Motor Vehicles, it?s hard to see how you avoid some impact on services. But if you can hold the cost per worker constant in a given year, you can keep the same number of employees while keeping costs under control as well. This kind of strategy won?t work forever, but it just might help the state get through one very difficult year.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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The story that the Albany Times Union reported earlier this week on New York State?s wildlife pathologist, Ward Stone, is a sad and troubling one from many perspectives. Mr. Stone is an accomplished environmentalist and naturalist whose appearances on WAMC have always been educational, enjoyable and inspiring. He is credited with important work over many years at New York State?s Department of Environmental Conservation. But if the Times Union article is accurate ? and it appears to be based on solid information ? Mr. Stone was sometimes abusive to his colleagues at the Department, misused his position there, and otherwise engaged in various forms of professional misbehavior.

The element of the story that I found most broadly disturbing is the indication that Mr. Stone had essentially been using his state office as a place of residence for a number of years, contrary to repeated directives from the agency. Almost three years ago, in June 2007, according to the newspaper, the director of the department?s Fish and Wildlife Division sent a, quote, ?formal counseling? memo to Mr. Stone instructing him to stop living in his office at the Wildlife Resources Center in Delmar. The memo reportedly came several years after the unusual residential arrangement began. According to the Times Union, that memo of three years ago had little, if any, effect.

The point is not simply that one employee may have used a state office in an inappropriate way. The question is this: Can?t a major state agency such as the Department of Environmental Conservation ? and can?t the state of New York ? even control inappropriate use of its own property? Can?t a state agency tell an employee not to live in the office and make such an order stick? Apparently not. Well, if not, what does this tell us about the general ability of the state government to effectively carry out its mission of serving the public?

When one employee operates in ways that compromise an institutional culture, the ability of other employees to carry out their work can be seriously impaired. That?s what happened in a different, but somewhat similar case in the city of Schenectady over many years.

In the Schenectady school district, a maintenance supervisor and union leader threatened and intimated fellow employees, including higher-level administrators who supposedly were his own supervisors. Evidence at the trial of Steven Raucci made clear that the school superintendent, Dr. Eric Ely, and members of the elected school board cooperated with or turned a blind eye to Mr. Raucci?s poisoning of the atmosphere in the school district. It?s hard to say precisely how or to what extent such managerial failure degraded the educational environment in Schenectady schools. But it?s also hard to escape the conclusion that the students suffered, because the superintendent and school board would not stand up for ethical behavior.

Again, these are two very different cases. The common thread is that, in both, the top priority in the minds of managers and administrators seems to have been something other than any concern for the overall good of the public. Some combination of inappropriate political considerations, bureaucratic entropy and a circle-the-wagons mentality came before any thought of the ultimate missions of the agencies involved. That sort of misplaced priority happens too often.

It?s not easy to deliver public services of high quality. The people who do the work in the Department of Environmental Conservation, and those in the Schenectady city school district, are mostly folks who want to do a good job protecting the environment and educating the next generation. We ask them to bear a lot of responsibility and take on challenges that are very difficult.

And we ask the leaders in state government, and in local municipalities and school districts, to do things that include creating a work environment where performance and results matter. Nobody expects perfection or anything near it. But when important governmental entities are unable or simply unwilling to intervene against harmful behavior, that level of failure undermines the basic contract between the people and their government.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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After more than a year of legislative turmoil, criminal investigations and sharper than usual criticism from editorial writers and voters, the New York State Senate now faces yet another scandal. This time the focus is on Senator Pedro Espada, a Democrat who represents parts of the Bronx. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo?s office filed a civil complaint charging Senator Espada with using his nonprofit organization as a ?personal piggy bank.? The organization, Soundview Medical, provides health care services, mostly funded by taxpayers through the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Even for those of us who have seen plenty of political corruption cases over the years, the Espada case is breathtaking for the scale of the alleged venality. The attorney general says Senator Espada arranged for his nonprofit organization to guarantee him a severance package valued at $9 million. The Senator spent more than $250,000 of the organization?s money on personal charges, according to the complaint. Among those listed are more than $80,000 in restaurant bills for 650 meals over the course of three years or so. In other words, if the charges are accurate, Senator Espada billed the so-called nonprofit group for an average of $400 in restaurant bills every week. Those included, by the way, more than 200 sushi meals for which the average bill was around $100 each. Pretty fancy dining ? ultimately at the taxpayer?s expense. Other inappropriate expenditures went to support the senator?s political campaign, according to the charges.

The attorney general is asking a court to require that Senator Espada repay the millions of dollars he?s charged with misappropriating. The civil charges, and any criminal charges that might follow, will probably take months to resolve. In the meantime, the case represents a legislative and political nightmare for other members of the Senate, particularly Senator Espada?s fellow Democrats who hold a bare majority in their chamber. The state budget is overdue. New York is facing its worst fiscal crisis in decades, and it?s likely that controversial cuts in spending and increases in taxes will be required to produce a balanced financial plan. Senator Espada?s colleagues may need his vote to pass any legislation or budget bills.

To their credit, some of his colleagues didn?t let the political complications keep them from speaking out immediately about the charges. Senator Neil Breslin, from Albany County, was the first to call on Espada to step down from his position as majority leader, saying such a step would bring some ?dignity and respect? back to the Legislature. Several Democrats who are competing for the party?s nomination in this year?s election for attorney general, and a number of Republican lawmakers, echoed that call.

What lessons can we learn from the Espada case? Well, one lesson relates to the enormous increase over the past three decades in the use of nonprofit organizations to provide important public services. Attorney General Cuomo said Senator Espada was able to convert his nonprofit organization?s funds to personal use because he installed a compliant board of directors to oversee the organization. State law requires directors to exercise independent judgement and proper care in overseeing nonprofits. Anyone who has been involved in running such an organization knows how critically important that independence is to maintaining integrity and appropriate use of taxpayer or charitable dollars. There have been many other cases of state legislators directing funding to community organizations and then asking or pressuring these groups to provide financial or political favors. The state comptroller?s office might keep a more watchful eye on state-funded nonprofits generally.

There may be lessons for the Legislature, too. For example, there are few guidelines regarding what should happen to a legislator who is charged with major violations of the civil or criminal laws. Another current member, Senator Kevin Parker of Brooklyn, is under indictment for allegedly assaulting a news photographer. State law provides that conviction on a felony means automatic expulsion from the Legislature. But, in the absence of formal rules, filing of charges alone does not require any action. It?s never easy for any legislative leader to take action against a colleague, especially one of the same party, because legislators rely on mutual relationships for their own political viability and success. Establishing formal rules could make it easier to resolve such problems in the future.

Of course, rules can only go so far. Ultimately, good government starts and ends with good people. We need more of them in politics today.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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How can New York State even think about closing state parks? How can anyone seriously suggest locking the gates at Thacher Park, Grafton Lakes and Peebles Island state parks, Minekill and Glimmerglass? Or closing the doors at historic sites including the Schuyler Mansion in Albany and John Brown?s farm up in Essex County?

One way to answer the question is to say that the state just doesn?t have the money. The deep national recession cut revenue dramatically over the last couple of years. Governor Paterson is asking the Legislature to help close a very big budget gap, around $8 billion, for the coming year. The funding cuts for the parks are one small part of his proposal for solving that problem.

Closing the parks would take place in the coming budget year, which starts April 1. This discussion is also driven partly by funding cuts that were imposed over the past two years on the parks system, and on other state agencies.

But saying the state just doesn?t have the money isn?t entirely accurate. This year?s state budget actually spends a lot more than last year?s. The financial plan the Legislature enacted last April increased spending by about $10 billion, or 8 percent, from the previous year. Funding for the environment and parks was up by $249 million.

Huh? Overall spending is up by $10 billion, and appropriations for the environment and parks are up substantially as well. So why are we talking about closing parks?

Two points come to mind. First, some programs are more popular with politically influential groups than other programs are. Second, elected leaders often have more interest in starting new projects ? or in this case, acquiring more parkland ? than in maintaining them over time.

Let?s take that second point first. Since 2003, the state has spent many millions of dollars to acquire or protect more than 750,000 acres of open space. And over the past 20 years or so, the state parks system has grown by more than 25 percent. A lot of folks applauded those acquisitions, and reasonably so. But was there enough thinking, over the course of those years, about resources to keep the parks thriving for the long term? The idea of closing parks now brings to mind the state?s long-term failure to maintain the Lake Champlain bridge. That failure led to the bridge being closed a few months ago, and enormously painful disruption to daily life for a lot of people in the North Country. What?s the connection between a bridge decaying to the point where it has to be shut down, and proposals to close state parks? Well, there were many years when the state was flush with cash. In hindsight, it looks as though not enough dollars were put into the unexciting and politically unrewarding tasks of taking care of what we already had.

But let?s go back to that $10 billion increase in spending in this current year?s budget. When the state?s expenditures are going up by that much ? by 8 percent, more than twice the inflation rate ? how is it possible there?s not enough money to keep a few parks open?

The answer is priorities. When it comes to public budgets, priorities are driven in part by demographics, and in part by political influence.

Those forces help explain why New York State?s budget is increasingly dominated by two program areas ? education and health care. This year?s budget provided more than $3 billion in new funding for Medicaid, and more than $2 billion in new support for education, at the same time funding for many other areas was being cut.

After receiving the lion?s share of new spending in the adopted budget, K-12 education and health care were largely spared last fall, when weak revenues forced the state to impose midyear cuts. The state parks department was not spared. It took a cut of almost $7 million ? a sizable reduction for a fairly small agency.

The reality is that the state parks don?t have a lot of political influence. The unions that lobby and run advertising campaigns on behalf of education and health care do have influence. That power was pretty clearly on display last fall, when Governor Paterson asked the Legislature to make some reductions in the large increases provided for education and health care. The Legislature said no.

The state?s budget cuts have been quite substantial in some areas, and small or nonexistent in others. That?s one reason our parks are running out of money.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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The news of the day is filled with events far away. But for a lot of people in Albany, one of the most important things going on right now centers on an old, unimpressive-looking building on Washington Avenue.

That place is the old Albany YMCA. It was once filled every day with kids from the surrounding neighborhood, from the Pine Hills area little further uptown, and from throughout the city of Albany. Now, membership has dwindled. The facility is losing money, and just might have to close. But make no mistake: the old building on Washington Avenue is still an important part of the community for a lot of people in the city. And some of them are doing their best to keep it open.

Many have been making phone calls to former and current members, asking them to rejoin or bring in a friend. Other supporters are making special contributions to the Y Reach out for Youth program, which provides free Y membership for kids whose families would never be able to afford it otherwise.

Will the effort to save the Albany Y succeed? It?s too early to say. The management and board of the Y have a responsibility to do something about the longstanding drain of dollars that weakens the overall organization and threatens other programs. After announcing a few weeks ago that the building would close, they?ve committed to taking another look if the new support from the community justifies reconsideration. If the community support is strong enough ? if more people decide they and their kids could use a little exercise ? if the city of Albany can help with parking nearby ? there are a lot of ?ifs.? If all of them produce the right answer, maybe the Y can live on for another generation or more. Speaking of ifs ? if you are interested in more information or even making a contribution, you can find out more at the Capital District YMCA website, cdymca.org.

But what?s going on here goes beyond one old building on Washington Avenue. The decline of the old Y is an example of how years of population decline have weakened Albany, just the same as we?ve seen in other cities from Troy and Schenectady, down to Hudson and up to Plattsburgh, out to Utica, Syracuse and beyond. That decline helps explain a lot of the political battles over a wide range of issues: the impact of charter schools on the traditional school districts, the difficulty of keeping neighborhoods clean and safe, the occasional and unforgettable stories about young kids shooting guns and dying in the streets. How do we turn those things around?

Surely one answer is that we need to strengthen the institutions that build up the community. The YMCA is one of those. Whatever might happen to one building on Washington Avenue, the Y will always be an important part of the city and of the entire Capital Region. Leaders and members of the Y are asking residents of the area, business and political leaders, and others, to look at ways that volunteer efforts, cooperative initiatives among community-based organizations and other steps might help strengthen those neighborhoods that have been in decline.

Here in the Capital Region in particular, it?s important to recognize the impact of the national recession on New York State government. The state is struggling to close an $8 billion budget gap in the coming year, and faces even bigger problems down the road. So it?s unlikely any large numbers of dollars will be coming from the state capitol to rescue the Y or other community organizations that are having trouble making ends meet. In fact, many nonprofits will likely see existing state funding reduced in the coming year. It?s going to require old-fashioned volunteer work and commitment if we?re going to turn things around and keep the Washington Avenue Y open.

Will the response be enough? If the answer is to be yes, it will have to come from a lot of different people. The YMCA is a membership and community organization. Only if there is enough support from members, and from the community, will the Washington Avenue Y continue for another generation.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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It was just about a century and a half ago when a New York City lawyer and newspaper editor named Gideon John Tucker wrote this famous line: ?No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.?

Tucker was an accomplished politician himself. He was active in Tammany Hall, the powerful Democratic organization that ran things in New York City for decades. He served for a time as New York State secretary of state. Not many people know his name today, but his remark about the nature of the state Legislature lives on.

No question, we?ve had our share of shady characters and outright scoundrels in the history of the New York State Legislature. It?s been 234 years since New York joined other states in declaring independence from Great Britain. During that time, well over than 6,000 individuals have been elected to the Senate or the Assembly. How often has one of those lawmakers have been found so unfit for office that other members voted to kick him out?

The answer: Hardly ever. Three months ago, the leadership of the state Senate appointed a special committee to investigate the facts involved in the conviction of Senator Hiram Monserrate on a misdemeanor charge of reckless assault. In the report on its investigation, the committee reviewed the history of such matters. It pointed to only three cases in which sitting members of the Legislature were expelled by their colleagues after engaging in fraud or other misbehavior. Another five members of the Assembly were prevented from taking their seats because, as members of the Socialist Party in the 1920s, they were considered disloyal to the United States.

In addition to those eight individuals, we have the case of now former Senator Monserrate. In October, a court found him guilty of recklessly causing physical injury to a woman with whom he was living. The conviction led his Senate colleagues to consider whether sanctions, including expulsion, were appropriate.

His lawyers, a few fellow legislators and Monserrate himself argued that his crime was not so serious as to justify expulsion.

Looking only at the context of the history of the Legislature provides some evidence for their case. Dozens of lawmakers, including some legislative leaders, have been found guilty of misappropriating ? in effect, stealing ? substantial amounts of the taxpayers? money. Others have been accused of violent crimes. But except when convicted of a felony and thus automatically disqualified from office, those other officials seldom were forced to leave.

So one question that arises is this: Are there any objective standards that can be applied to these cases, similar to the standards we try to apply in the courts?

The answer is, not really. Legislatures by their nature are political bodies and ultimately responsive to the will of the voters. In this case members of the Senate were aware that this is an election year, and many voters would not look kindly on incumbents who voted to keep Senator Monserrate in office after his conviction. And this year, politics are even more in the air than usual, because the Democrats and Republicans are in a tight battle to control the Senate. These are political considerations. But does that mean they taint a vote in favor of expulsion? Not necessarily. Legislators are supposed to represent the opinions of their constituents, at least within certain bounds.

And it?s also true that there are principles at play. Many of Mr. Monserrate?s colleagues said he has brought dishonor on the Legislature. There?s no question about that. If anything, we may need more of that kind of thinking and judging. It?s hard and often counterproductive for legislators, either at the state level or in Congress, to criticize the personal behavior of their colleagues. They have to have at least some minimal ability to work together, or they won?t be able to get anything done. But somewhere there?s a balance between simply going along to get along, on the one hand, and maintaining good working relationships along with appropriate standards of behavior, on the other.

One of New York?s early constitutional documents contained a provision authorizing lawmakers to expel a colleague. It used the word ?purge,? which suggests elimination of something that is noxious and unclean. The overwhelming majority of the members of New York?s legislature are honest, hardworking, respectable individuals. But politics, perhaps especially in New York, does produce some who are not. Expelling another member who has been elected by the voters is an extreme solution. That doesn?t make it a bad one.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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There?s an old saying: You get what you pay for. Sometimes, we want things that we?re not willing to pay for. That?s when we can get in trouble.

Two illustrations of this are much in the news this week: The new state budget that Governor Paterson sent to the Legislature, and the health-care legislation President Obama is pushing Congress to enact. These two elected leaders have taken very different approaches when it comes to things you want, and things that you?re ready to pay for.

Governor Paterson?s new financial plan is a classic example of how state budgets are very different from those enacted in Washington. New York and other states are required to balance their budgets every year. They can?t run big deficits, like the federal government has done almost continuously in recent decades. And so when the economy goes downhill, and revenues follow, states have to make tough decisions that leaders in Washington usually avoid.

The tough choices Governor Paterson wrote into his budget include a 5 percent reduction in aid to public schools, other spending cuts, and a billion dollars in new taxes and fees. No governor, or other elected official, wants to make proposals like those. But if the state budget were left on autopilot, spending would jump by $6.5 billion, or 5 percent, at a time when the recession is keeping revenues essentially stagnant.

Of course, anyone can quibble with the Governor?s choices. And predictably, dozens of interest groups are already criticizing him pretty harshly. We?ll hear more from them in the weeks ahead.

But one reason the state is in financial trouble today is that over the course of many years, governors and legislators in Albany have refused to make tough decisions. Instead, they balanced budgets with gimmicks and borrowing. Over time, those practices end up adding to your costs. Governor Paterson is trying to stop rolling the deficits from one year to another. If he succeeds, the state will be a lot stronger going forward. And that would mean that budgets in coming years could be more generous with funding for important services, without imposing big tax increases or piling more debt on our children.

And that brings us to the health-care debate in Washington.

The election of Scott Brown as United States Senator from Massachusetts changes the national political environment dramatically. In responding to that new environment, President Obama said any health-care legislation enacted by Congress must have some form of cost containment, to avoid more borrowing and tax increases.

If the new health-care legislation doesn?t control costs, the president said, ?then our budgets are going to blow up.?

That?s just simple economic reality. Health-care costs are the biggest factor driving long-term federal budget deficits. Back in 1993, when Hillary Clinton proposed an earlier version of national health-care reform, she emphasized the need to control costs in order to make dollars available to pay for new coverage.

The current versions of health-care legislation proposed by the House and Senate include no serious mechanisms to limit the growth of costs. And that?s one reason for some of the criticism that has delayed action on the President?s top domestic priority. It?s also one reason Massachusetts is now sending a Republican to the Senate, instead of a Democrat.

You get what you pay for. And sometimes if you?re not willing to pay for it, you have to figure out a new strategy. It looks as though President Obama is working on that right now.

Robert Ward is deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He is also author of New York State Government: Second Edition, published by the Rockefeller Institute Press.

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