The battle is on, and politics moves to the spotlight. Gov. Andrew Cuomo set the stage, starkly and clearly. Now our democracy will try to make a decision. That's much harder than it sounds.
Cuomo has proposed two big ideas. First, enshrine tea party austerity as New York's governing economic theory, with tax cuts for the wealthy, spending cuts and corporate subsides of a kind that Paul Ryan would love.
Second, reform the electoral process. The much discussed and much ignored public financing of campaigns is in the governor's budget, which makes it very hard for the Senate to turn it down. (Once in the proposed budget, the Legislature has no constitutional power to take it out).
Comes now the Senate: Senate Republicans and their leader, Dean Skelos of Long Island, love the tax cuts, hate the reform. Senate Independent Democrats and their leader, Jeff Klein of the Bronx, hate the tax cuts, and love the reform. What to do?
There are layers of political calculations in all this, all legitimate. Can the Senate Republican/Democrat ruling coalition survive? Will Klein move back to a coalition with the regular Democrats? Will Cuomo continue his support for the Republican/Democrat coalition or drive a shotgun marriage for a pure Democratic majority? Who gets hurt if the Cuomo agenda survives?
Come now the progressive advocacy groups that have been so powerful in past battles. The problem is that they're conflicted and Cuomo is playing that split to the hilt. Lots of them think their moral and political reason-to-be is economic justice and ending income inequality. They hate the Cuomo tax cuts. Lots of them think that campaign finance reform will finally rid them of the Senate Republicans who block most of what they cherish. They love campaign finance reform.
Comes now the rank and file, in the Senate and the Assembly. There's powerful opposition to the austerity/tax cut aspects of the Cuomo budget. It's a bitter pill for those who believe in investment, fair taxation, helping cities and ending income inequality. It's also an election year, and Democratic members don't want to face a primary challenge because they voted to cut estate and business taxes when they couldn't fund schools or pass New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's tax package. The Cuomo package is a hard vote, even with campaign finance reform included.
Both campaign finance reform and fair taxation are important. What if you can't have both? What if Cuomo says he'll muscle campaign finance reform, but only if Klein, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (yes, the Assembly has a role), and advocacy groups agree to massive upper-income tax cuts? Yikes.
Klein is tempted to take the deal, because he's gotten so much criticism from the left for the Senate's failure to reform campaign finance laws.
But he's no fan of upper-income tax cuts. And he's being threatened with a primary challenge if he doesn't produce progressive legislation. It's tempting in the short-term but probably a long-term mistake.
The progressive coalition and the progressive members of the Senate and Assembly are caught in a real crossfire. Watch the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus, outspoken progressives in both houses, the labor unions, which bankroll budget fights, and the Working Families Party.
And watch Cuomo, who's working the phones hard to squelch growing support for de Blasio's tax-surcharge and growing opposition to his budget.
Budget decisions are always political, as they should be. But two things are clear: Never underestimate Andrew Cuomo. And, just as the left begins to celebrate election victories and new momentum, Cuomo smacks them with Republican supply-side austerity tax cuts for the rich. Who knew?
As Pete Seeger used to sing: Which side are you on?
Richard Brodsky is a fellow at the Demos think tank in New York City and at the Wagner School at New York University.