Vol. 73/No. 50      December 28, 2009

The MTA says it faces a “sudden financial shortfall of more than $400 million,” according to the New York Times. It unanimously approved December 16 a plan to phase out discounted or free MetroCards that go to about 550,000 students, reduce or eliminate service on dozens of bus routes, shut down two subway lines and shorten two others, and run fewer subway trains in the middle of the day and at night. Access-a-Ride services for the disabled would be cut back. The plan would eliminate 700 jobs and reduce wages of nonunion workers by 10 percent. Public hearings must be held on these cuts, which would not go into effect until June.

Subway fares were increased this summer to $2.25 a ride, with bridge and tunnel tolls rising by about 10 percent. According to MTA chairman Jay Walder, further fare increases are already planned for 2011 and 2013.  
 
Unions are blamed
“Sacrificing for the unions” headlined a December 15 New York Post editorial as the capitalist media seeks to place the blame for these cutbacks on the transit workers.

On December 11 a New York State Supreme Court judge ruled that an arbitrators' ruling giving transit workers a small wage increase averaging about 3.7 percent for each of the next three years should go into effect. The Transport Workers Union had agreed to binding arbitration with the MTA after its contract expired last January. The MTA refused to implement the arbitrators' ruling, but the court has now upheld it.

Claiming the state now faces a $3.2 billion deficit in this year’s budget, Paterson demanded the state legislature slash this amount from already approved allocations, including more than $1 billion in school aid and health care. In response, the legislature earlier this month cut social programs by $2.7 billion. This included eliminating $140 million from the MTA, cuts of $58 million from the City University of New York and its community colleges, and reduced pensions for many new government workers.

But when the legislators didn't cut as much as he wanted, Paterson unilaterally implemented an additional $750 million in cuts. This includes a 10 percent cut in school aid, $146 million; a 19 percent cut, $47 million, in payments to insurance companies for state workers’ health care; and a 19 percent cut, $76 million, in “human services” payments to county governments.

The governor’s move was sharply criticized by some legislators. “He already knows that any attempt to singlehandedly impound money that has been allocated by the legislature is unconstitutional,” Senate finance chairman Carl Kruger, a Democrat, told the New York Post.

Paterson has said deeper cuts are to come over the next several years to make up a projected deficit of nearly $50 billion through March 2013.

As capitalist politicians deepen their drive to cut social programs and services, top priority is given to maintaining payments to the wealthy bondholders of the state’s debt. This year these payments come to $5.9 billion for New York State, up by nearly 50 percent from a decade ago.
 
 
Related articles:
No to cutbacks in social wage!  
 
 
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