Low Bar

Here's a bad idea from Governor Spitzer: benchmark the annual growth in state spending to the annual growth in personal income for New Yorkers. Mr. Spitzer unveiled the idea this week in a speech to, of all groups, the Citizens Budget Commission, which generally tries to rein in taxes and spending.

It's not a bad idea to set a benchmark for spending growth, nor is it a bad idea, as Mr. Spitzer suggested to get a handle on the various categories of spending that are now used in Albany to obscure how fast the money is flowing out the door. But in a state with an already bloated budget, a state with the highest combined state and local tax burden in the nation and the highest per-student education spending in the nation, Mr. Spitzer's proposal sets New Yorkers up for state spending growth a couple of percentage points a year more than inflation. This isn't fiscal discipline; it's profligacy, and it is a sign of how entrenched the tax-and-spend forces are in Albany that a self-styled reform governor such as Mr. Spitzer would even propose it.

A better benchmark, in our view, would be a zero-based budget that takes a fresh look at every dollar spent by Albany. If that's too much to ask, the prior year's budget, in nominal dollars — i.e., without an automatic increase for inflation — would be a good starting point. But starting off by assuming that spending in Albany is going to soar as personal income does, or that government's share of personal income in the state should stay at its present hefty level, amounts to a pre-emptive surrender from a man who had vowed that on day one, everything would change.