Levy has kept Suffolk solvent

Six weeks ago, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo gave his State of the State address and told the people of New York what they already knew: The state of the state is critical and getting worse. Three weeks ago, President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union address and told the American people what they already knew: The state of the union continues to be grave and is not quickly getting much better.

Last night Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy gave his State of the County address and told Suffolk residents what they already knew: The state of the county is strong and growing stronger.

This is a message of remarkable achievement in a time when counties, towns and cities all over the United States are either declaring bankruptcy or seriously considering it. Congress is even quietly talking about the possibility of allowing states to explore bankruptcy. If states like California and New York were private businesses, they probably would have filed already.

The federal government's annual deficit stands at $1.5 trillion and climbing. New York State is grappling with a near $10-billion deficit. Many economists fear that government bankruptcies will disastrously affect the municipal bond markets, which will inexorably lead to a second nationwide financial meltdown. While many of these problems were exacerbated by unforeseen declining tax revenues, the main culprit is, and always has been, government's inability to live within its means.

Suffolk County's stable financial position - affirmed by strong bond ratings from Wall Street - contrasts starkly with the national spend-like-drunken-sailors trend. Much of the credit for this goes to the foresight and initiatives of Steve Levy (full disclosure: I have been a campaign consultant for him in the past, though I'm not presently, and I've never advised him on government matters). Levy's fiscal policies have always stressed the importance of recurring savings rather than relying on the typical gimmicky one year-one shot solutions.

When Levy was first elected to public office in 1985, he developed a reputation for being an extreme fiscal conservative (some said tightwad) with the taxpayers' dollars. For years in the county legislature and then in the State Assembly, he seemed like a voice in the wilderness. Truthfully, not many in government took him too seriously. He was out of step with the prevailing attitudes about government spending. After all, tax revenues would always increase - just like home prices would always go up.

In the midst of this spending orgy, Levy became Suffolk executive in 2004. Municipalities across the board continued to spend, spend, spend, indebting future generations. In Suffolk, Levy put forward a program of tax cutting, competitive bidding, government restructuring and cost saving. And then something remarkable happened: His message became popular . . . not only with the voters, but with other elected officials as well. Suffolk has become a bastion of fiscal sanity in a municipal world gone economically crazy.

Levy rightly pointed out last night that a cap on property taxes without a cap on government spending is just another electoral gimmick. His proposed 2 percent cap on county discretionary spending is the right step to controlling skyrocketing property taxes. Additionally, state lawmakers should seriously consider heeding his call to give the county the tools to control mandated costs. It has been demonstrated all too clearly that government has to be forced to live within its means; it will never do so voluntarily.

On most levels of government, there's little to celebrate. The message from the president and the governor is that there is much hard work ahead. The message from Suffolk County is that the hard work has been going on for years.