Paladino vows cuts, but observers say he's vague

Repeal the Metropolitan Transportation Authority payroll tax, cut personal income taxes by 10 percent and slice $20 billion from a $52 billion Medicaid budget.

Those were among the policy ideas offered Tuesday by Republican gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino, who promised to take an ax to taxes and spending in a speech to business executives in Manhattan sponsored by Crain's New York.

"I have a plan, a bold innovative plan, and I am ready to lead," Paladino said in his first major policy address to New York City business leaders.

But independent economic observers from the right and left said Tuesday Paladino's mix of large tax cuts and huge spending cuts as the state faces an $8 billion budget gap were too vague and contradictory to evaluate fairly.

"Paladino hasn't put out enough information to provide a really clear picture of what he wants to do," said E.J. McMahon, director of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a project of the conservative Manhattan Institute, which itself has been advising the Paladino campaign. "He obviously says he will make big cuts in spending and taxes. Beyond that, the specifics are shaky, and what he says doesn't always add up."

A Paladino spokesman declined to respond to McMahon.

The speech Tuesday was meant to showcase what Paladino called a "kinder, gentler" version of himself. Last week, he drew criticism for accusing his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, of extramarital affairs while he was married to his ex-wife.

But Paladino was blunt as ever, making headlines for calling Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver "a criminal" and denouncing the MTA.

He vowed to fire its chief executive, Jay Walder, and turn the independent authority into an arm of the state government under the state DOT, calling the MTA a "faceless giant" that's unresponsive to the public. Paladino said he would pay for the $1.5-billion MTA payroll tax cut by rooting out "waste, fraud and abuse."

Bill Henderson of the MTA's Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee said whether an MTA service is considered wasteful "depends on whether you ride them."

Paladino said he would accomplish his 10 percent tax cut by pushing the State Legislature to sunset a 2009 tax increase in 2011 instead of 2012, which would cost the state $3.3 billion. And he said he would create manufacturing jobs by eliminating most corporate taxes on such businesses, which would cost $1 billion in revenue each year.

He said he would find $10 billion to $12 billion in spending cuts - mostly by bringing New York's Medicaid spending into line with other states - to offset the tax cuts and close the budget gap.

But Frank Mauro, executive director of the liberal Fiscal Policy Institute, said the tax cuts would cost about $1.7 billion more than Paladino claimed. He said studies have shown cutting corporate taxes rarely creates jobs.

Further, observers said Paladino had little chance of pushing the measures through the Democratic-controlled Assembly.