What happens when tax revenues continue to fall due to the worsening employment situation? You don’t have enough money to run your town, city, or even the state is what happens.

New York Governor David Paterson told his legislature tonight that the state has only 4 and 1/2 weeks of money left.

[...]“We’re going to run out of cash in four and a half weeks. We are going to run out of money. Unless we do something about it, (it will) threaten generations,” Paterson said.

And so began what is turning out to be a tense tug of war between Gov. Paterson and the Legislature.

The governor says $3.2 billion in cuts must be enacted how — or else. The cuts range from $500 million in agency spending to over $1 billion in already committed in aid to school districts and hospitals.

“I will mortgage my political career, but I will not mortgage the fate of the State of New York,” Paterson said.

But Senate Democrats, with their tenuous 32-30 hold on the upper house, are terrified to make school and hospital cuts because, they said, the cuts could mean increases in local property taxes.

And that could mean suburban Democrats on Long Island, in Westchester and other parts of the state could have trouble getting re-elected next year.[...] (source: CBS 2 New York)

For heavens sake, don’t try to balance the budget by making tough decisions or you just may lose elections. Is winning elections really that more important than finding a workable solution to the budget problems? I guess it is and so now you know part of the reason why it is we continue to have this nightmare economy.