The state budget is way off. Revenue down.

0:00 Speaker 1 What is today is Governor David Pattison, and he has a lot of knowledge of what the heck is going on in New York City and New York State and on the national community. Governor Pattison, welcome to this Sunday morning.

0:14 What would you like to start at this morning?

0:17 Speaker 2 Well, thank you, John. I hope that you and everyone listening had a happy July fourth weekend. This was a great July fourth weekend because July fourth falling on a Tuesday, enabled a lot of people to start the holiday on Friday and go all the way to Wednesday before they went back to work. But what’s interesting about July fourth

0:36 that a lot of people know is that the Declaration of Independence was actually signed on July third, seventeen seventy six, and then the year later, when they were the Continental Congress was doing something and they were real busy, and somebody realized eight in the day a year later that they had never celebrated the event of signing the declaration

1:07 the year before, So they celebrated it on July fourth, seventeen seventy seven, and we’ve celebrated it on July fourth every day since. So now that we’re done with that, I understand.

1:22 Speaker 1 So the real date is July third, left, and like the first capital of the United States was in New York City and Manhattan Federal.

1:33 Speaker 2 Hall exactly exactly. There’s so much about that period, about not just the politics, but the military strategies and the different relationships between the different states that were founded, and then of course, you know, you know, supervising everything until the Americans got tired of it. It’s wonderful history. But you had a conversation with Governor Hochel this week and

2:04 you shared it, I believe, Thursday night on the five o’clock show, and it really point it really pointed out to me, and I think everyone needs to know this that this Governor Kavy Hochel is in an unenviable place.

2:21 She is the only governor who has now served her whole time with a legislature that has more than two po majorities in the Senate and Assembly. The reason that’s important is because if Governor hokeel veto’s a bill, they can come up with enough votes to override her veto.

2:45 So this has given the legislative leaders far more authority and power than they’ve had in the past. And so I remember in two thousand and three, the first year I was a minority leader, we overrode one of Governor Ptecki’s vetos, and both the Senate and Assembly we did them almost unanimously. But for the most part, governors have

3:12 not had to deal with that problem. I never had that problem, and I was there, and it’s a very difficult position because everyone holds you, being the governor, responsible for everything that goes on, but your capacity, the capacity to influence the situation is reduced from times before. So I think that she’s gotten some criticism from people at

3:43 times who really don’t know that she doesn’t have the unilateral discretion that others of us had when we served.

3:54 Speaker 1 Yes, understood, and she made it very clear that the legislature, State Senate, in the in the Assembly have a thumb over her, and she’s trying to work it out. But what I think she did say is on the bail reform, they are stubborn that they don’t want to do anything more.

4:22 I mean, it’s just very sad because there’s a mass exodus out of New York and and I guess we did talk about that. The budget for the last twelve months is down like twenty percent, so at some point.

4:42 Does that mean the budget blows up? Have you? I’ve never seen the number as high as twenty percent.

4:50 Speaker 2 Well, there’s a thirteen point three projected budget deficit that would have to be closed, and the best to start closing it would be now. In other words, I mean, I don’t want to get the governor.

5:06 Speaker 1 No, no, listen, I care for her. I think she’s a good governor. I mean, I think she’s trying very hard. I think right, but she’s got a thumb over her.

5:17 Speaker 2 Well, in my first year, we had a similar on This was two thousand and eight. This is when everything fell apart, and I demanded that the legislature come back in the summer. And they did come back, and they cut two billion dollars off of a four billion dollar out your budget gap. But I had a lot of

5:36 weapons to deal with them in case they didn’t do that that she doesn’t have. So, in other words, she could invite them back this summer. And other than if it’s a barbecue, I don’t think it’s likely that they’re coming.

5:49 But everyone needs to understand that your responsibility is to your district the people that live there, but it’s also to all of people the State of New York and certain point we’ve got to understand. The pandemic taught us one thing that we should all remember. People don’t have to live in the same place. They can move and

6:11 work from Florida, California, North Carolina, got a lot of New Yorkers down there. In the state of Georgia, they have a Hempstead Day where all the people from Hempstead, Long Island, the village that I grew up in, they have a big event to emorate that they all lived in Hempstead. So, in other words, a lot there’s an

6:32 outward migration of people. And it’s easy to say, text the rich, but it’s going to be hard to text the rich when all the rich living in North Carolina or Illinois, or Phoenix, Arizona, or some of these places that are popping up. And we now know that those states down south, like North and South Carolina, Georgia, and

6:58 Tennessee actually have a greater effect on our federal budget than the Northeast, which had classically outpolled the rest of the nation in terms of our tax policies and our contributions we could make to the federal budget.

7:19 Speaker 1 Understood understood, I mean it’s it’s a mess, and we have to stop the exodus. And I said that, I said that to the governor. But we have to stop the exodus, uh and and try to bring things back to that we live in a civilized country. I mean the murders that are going on people. You know, Governor,

7:45 you know, I have stores that used to be open to midnight. But there’s nobody walking around at ten o’clock at night in New York anymore. Nobody walking around eleven o’clock of midnight. They’re scared to work. And there was an incident in the on Friday or Thursday at the was it CBS or wal Wings where they got into

8:07 an altercation with a shoplifter and one of them died.

8:12 Speaker 2 Yeah, actually the shoplifter died, which is I don’t know all of that, but it seems like a rush to judgment, perhaps to charge the security guard who in subduing the shoplifter he killed him. But you know, you know, this is that difficult situation where when is it self defense and when is it not? You know, So, I so.

8:47 Speaker 1 You pardoned a few people.

8:48 Speaker 2 I think, well, I pardon a man, an African American man who came outside and drew his gun to defend his home. There were twelve cars parked on his front lawn and these young kids who were, you know, kind of looking for trouble. And one of the kids hit the gun trying to get it away from him, and

9:11 he fired the gun and killed the kids. And the judge in sentencing him said that you were to be self defense. He had to be retreating, but he couldn’t retreat because he was standing against the wall of the house.

9:26 And I commuted his sentence. And believe it that you did. The New York Post wrote, if this was Texas, it wouldn’t even have had a trial.

9:36 Speaker 1 Well, you did the right thing, Governor. We only have thirty seconds left. Anything else you.

9:41 Speaker 2 Want to say, Well, I just think that the ramifications for not addressing budget deficits become even more immense if you don’t address them. It’s just like your household. If you don’t pay you on your credit card, they’re going to take it away from you. And I think we all just need to understand that it’s a fact. It’s

10:08 not a political policy, it’s a fact.

10:12 Speaker 1 I agree. I agree, Governor. Thank you so much, have a great summer weekend and let’s catch up again real soon, see you next week. Done,