Sleight of Hand in State Budget

Gov. David Paterson and State Senate Leader Sheldon Silver announced this past week that they will be able to hold the line on some of their ridiculous tax increases (iPod tax, soda tax, etc.) by using the $5 billion block grant due to New York State from the federal spendulus package.

The big problem here, as outlined by E.J. McMahon of the Manhattan Institute, is that Albany is going to be using this new chunk of cash to increase spending. That's all well and good for this year, but what about next year when there is no stimulus to cover those spending increases?

I guess that means that we have not killed the iPod tax; we've just postponed it for a little while.