Paterson will have to show results with budget plan

Gov. David A. Paterson unveils his big election-year budget proposal Tuesday. And amid all discussion of revenues and expenditures, you can expect to hear three overarching political themes from him:

The Legislature and the workforce must step up to help the state out of the fiscal crisis.

He didn't create the mess, but warned of its severity early on.

The state is in better shape than others and can come out of this strongly.

We know Paterson can set a tone and grab attention with interesting statements.

His ability to coherently execute policy may be another story.

He will try to convince the audiences that his plan, increasing spending by less than 2 percent, would steer state finances toward stability without unfairly burdening taxpayers, businesses or the poor, Albany insiders say.

Everyone now seems more than cognizant of a state and nation in economic crisis. Now that he's fully in the fray, however, Paterson will be called on to start accounting for results - amid pressure from all directions.

In his State of the State speech Jan. 6, Paterson signaled that he will distance himself from the Assembly and the Senate; he served in the upper chamber for two decades before he became Gov. Eliot Spitzer's lieutenant and then substitute.

Following up what one political consultant labeled an "anti-incumbent riptide" last Election Day, Paterson lectured the lawmakers on ethics. He presented a kitchen-sink reform proposal and even took an opaque shot at unidentified good-government groups.

Last week, when the Democratic house majorities came back with their own version, Paterson reverted at first to good-cop persona, calling this "certainly the beginning of a negotiation which I welcome."

But later he had his spokesman Peter Kauffmann claiming Paterson was "stunned that legislative leaders would be so disrespectful to the public that only one week after he proposed a sweeping and real overhaul of the ethics system in Albany, they would try to pass this off as anything more than election-year window-dressing."

That's the kind of rhetoric coming from the executive chamber on the Capitol's second floor on other fronts as well.

Paterson aides clashed last week with the big state public-service unions over the hiring of private consultants and temporary workers. The officials replied to criticism from the Civil Service Employees Association and the Public Employees Federation in part by characterizing them as special interests trying to impose bad policies on the state.

The governor Tuesday is expected to seek a wage freeze from the workforce, in the form of union members foregoing 4 percent raises due under their contract with the state.

So, for the second time in a month, Paterson commands the stage in Albany and seeks to project independence. Expect the governor, for example, to speak of an uptick in revenues that the Legislature should not use as a rationale for loosening the fiscal belt.

Practically, the presentation could augur something more dramatic: A confrontation in which the governor and Legislature in the coming weeks fail to collaborate, in which the governor vetoes legislative spending measures, and in which lawmakers could respond by trying to override.

Such a dynamic occurred during the Pataki administration. It wasn't pretty, but it may fit political agendas of the moment.

Mood and posturing sometimes trump the numbers in the creation of a budget, one of the most political of all documents.