Editorial pages of newspapers across New York State, including many papers known for generally liberal views, have almost unanimously condemned a proposed constitutional amendment that voters will see on this November's ballot.

The Business Council has tracked many of the editorials about the amendment, dubbed the "Runaway Spending Amendment." Many of the editorials have been excerpted on the Council's Web site dedicated to educating voters about the amendment, www.hightaxesnewyork.com

These editorial excerpts are at www.hightaxesnewyork.com/editorials.htm. New editorials are added weekly. Daily email updates, including excerpts of the latest editorials, are available. To receive the updates, email info@hightaxesnewyork.com and put the word "subscribe" in the subject field.

The page includes editorial excerpts from the New York Times, New York Post, New York Daily News, News day, New York Sun, Buffalo News, Times Union, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Utica Observer-Dispatch, Canada Daily Messenger, Water town Daily Times, and the Apotheosize Journal.

For example, an October 6 editorial from the Wall Street Journal said giving budgetary powers to legislators is like "waving packages of white powder in Needle Park."

"Current law vests governors with primary responsibility for shaping annual budgets for good reason," the Journal's editorial said. "For starters, it gives voters someone to hold accountable. But it's also a recognition that the executive branch by nature is in a better position to focus on the big picture, while legislators try to satisfy more parochial spending demands."

An April 30 editorial from the New York Times said the Runaway Spending Amendment "would make matters worse, not better."

And a September 19 editorial from the New York Post calls the amendment the "most brazen broad-daylight swindle New York has seen since the days before Rudy Giuliani tossed the three-card monte dealers from Times Square."

Other comments include:

New York Sun

• (Setting up Spitzer, 4/25/05) This is good news for those who like their taxes high and their budgets late. Others will ask, as we have, why lawmakers from both parties are pressing for something that would appear to guarantee both.
  
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  . . . legislative leaders insisted to The New York Sun last week that the amendment, including language on a transfer of power, go forward. It should be obvious that its approval would not only give legislators no incentive to pass a budget on time, but that it would also gut the powers of the governor.

New York Daily News

• (Vote no on Proposition 1, October 3, 2005) This amendment would only make matters worse.
  
  In fact, there are more than 100 billion reasons to vote against the change - one for every dollar taxpayers spend to float New York government. In the coming weeks, we'll be highlighting the top 10 reasons to vote no on what's known as Proposal No. 1.
  
  The amendment would only enhance the Legislature's prodigious power. Silver and Bruno's plan for ending budget stalemates boils down to cutting the governor out of the process - ending a tradition of strong gubernatorial control over finances that dates back to Al Smith and FDR.
  
  
  (Albany pols peddle bogus reform, 5/9/05) The Legislature has put on the November ballot a constitutional amendment calling budget reform. Sound good? It’s not. It is simply a naked power grab by pols who want to seize the governor’s lawful prerogatives for themselves. This proposal must be voted down.
  
  There are many desirable constitutional changes--term limits, voter initiative and referendum, nonpartisan redistricting and merit selection of judges-- that should go before the public. But they won't because Albany's greedy lawmakers are interested only in bolstering their own power, or usurping someone else's.
  
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  This supposed reform proposal doesn't require legislators to pass a balanced budget or even produce a coherent multiyear financial plan-- steps that might encourage them to act responsibly.
  
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  This year, they passed a budget on time--proving beyond a doubt that Albany doesn't need budget reform it needs behavior reform.

Newsday

• (Albany, no time for applause; Reform is still a long way off 5/2/05) The "contingency budget" approach, which makes the previous year's budget the default budget, is too likely to create further inaction.
  
  . . . .[T]he pendulum must not swing too far in the legislature's favor. That way lies chaos.

Albany Times Union

• (A sham reform, 5/3/2005) On the surface, the proposal seems harmless enough. It would specify that if and when the governor and Legislature fail to meet the budget deadline -- to be set May 1 -- a contingency budget would automatically be put in place. Spending would be limited to the levels authorized under the previous year's budget.
  
  Supporters of the reform argue that the prospect of a contingency budget would act as incentive for the Legislature and governor to agree on a new spending plan by May 1. But the opposite is true. There would be less pressure to meet the deadline for a new budget. In fact, the contingency budget would give the Legislature an incentive to drag out the process because the government would continue to function no matter how long it took to reach an accord.
  
  That's bad enough. What's worse -- far worse -- is how the proposed amendment would change the playing field. The contingency budget would, in effect, cancel out the governor's proposed budget for the new year. Instead, the Legislature would be free to craft a budget of its own.

The Buffalo News

• (Non-reform reform, 5/6/05) Clearly, New York's budget process needs fixing. But the package that now poses as budget reform is deeply flawed. The most fatal of those flaws is a clause mandating a contingency budget if the Legislature can't adopt the governor's proposed budget on time -- which, under this plan, would be May 1 instead of April 1. Lawmakers argue they would be pushed into action by the threat of such a contingency plan.

  Hardly. The contingency budget would actually be the previous year's spending levels with boosts in some targeted areas, such as education. Worse, it would allow the Legislature to supplement the contingency budget with more spending -- in effect, giving the Legislature the governor's power to write a spending plan. What this "reform" does is guarantee late budgets and unrestrained spending by a Legislature that will be unable to resist requests from every special interest in the state to stuff the contingency budget with more spending.
  
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  Voters will have a chance in November to undo the damage that the Legislature would do to the budget process. They should take full advantage of the opportunity. TOP
  

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

• (A power grab, 5/2/05) The Albany gang has it mixed up. The idea in crafting an on-time budget every year is not to grab as much power as you can and watch the other guy bob in your wake. The idea is to work together to come up with a balanced spending plan that doesn't keep digging into the taxpayers' pockets.
  
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  The budget-reform package [. . .] provides for a contingency budget based on last year's spending if lawmakers haven't acted on the governor's plan by May 1. Thereafter, lawmakers may amend the contingency as they see fit. The governor's plan is no longer in play, unless legislators want it to be. The governor would still have veto power.

  Sure, the state needs a contingency plan if the deadline is missed. But triggering that ought not mean the governor's plan gets an automatic boot. That just encourages political games: lawmakers ignoring the governor's budget, a marginalized governor wielding a veto pen.

  The answer is cooperation between the branches.

  This year's successful process proved that. The proposed "reform" ensures the opposite.
  

Utica Observer-Dispatch

• (Demand real budget reform, 5/7/05) A proposed amendment to the state Constitution is being billed as "budget reform," but it's really just a power grab by the Legislature.
  
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  With a contingency budget to keep the state running and the power to pass spending bills once the budget is overdue, where's the incentive for the Legislature to agree to an ontime budget?
  
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  The heart of this proposal is unsound. Voters should reject it. New Yorkers have made it clear they want real reform. We deserve better from our representatives.

Canandaigua Daily Messenger

• (Don't buy 'easy fix' for state budget woes, 5/08/05) The plan from the very beginning has been an overly hyped diversion from the most serious impediments to a rational annual budget.
  
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  [T]he Legislature could increase spending with very little input from the governor.
  
  That's scary. Over the years, governors of both parties have, with some exceptions, been more fiscally cautious than the state's legislators have been. Legislators get themselves reelected every year by bringing pork home to their small districts, while the governors take the blame for the state's big-spending ways.
  

Watertown Daily Times

• (State Budget: Court affirmed governor's role; let it stand, 5/4/05) The governor, as chief executive and the state's top elective official, represents all New Yorkers. The court correctly affirmed the governor's precedence in the state budget process.
  
  Albany should continue to work through the existing framework. To pass a thoughtful, on-time budgets, state leaders need to work as a team and have the will to get the job done for the people.
  
  They did it this year and can do it again.

Plattsburgh Press Republican

• (Budget reform? Not this way, 4/30/05) Responsibility for for the new budget would fall to the two houses of the legislature, leaving the governor out of the process.
  
  The reason that is such a disastrous provision is that it would encourage the legislature never to negotiate in good faith, because, by not doing so, it would automatically be handed the power over the budget.
  
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  Budget reform? If this ill-conceived budget reform amendment passes in November, then we'll need some real reform.

Poughkeepsie Journal

• (Flawed reform isn't tolerable, 5/02/05) This constitutional change would discourage, rather than encourage, fiscal responsibility and an on-time budget.
  
  This amendment to the constitution would, if the state failed to pass an on-time budget, authorize a "contingency budget" to fall in place. It may sound like a good idea, but it would actually be worse than keeping things status quo. Pretty scary.
  
  This contingency budget would nullify the governor's budget that legislators failed to approve and will leave the legislators open to craft their own plan. Their long tradition of largess will surely deliver sticker shock to taxpayers left to pick up the tab.
  
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  Eliminating the executive branch's power is not reform. It's a power play.
  
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  If legislators are determined to change the state's constitution for the worse, New York's voters should see through their game and halt the deception.