Our new governor, David A. Paterson, is off to a great start isn’t he? First we find out he’s a serial philanderer (self-admitted). It seems if you pay for sex like Spitzer did, you get bounced out of office. If don’t pay like Paterson, it’s “one of those phases” you go through in your marriage. Glad we’ve got that straight.

Now we find out that Paterson is a thief too. Seems he’s decided to take money, with the blessing of the state legislature, from various dedicated tax funds (some call it fees–I call it taxes), like snowmobile registrations, boating registrations and charter schools, in order to pay for LAST YEAR’S budget shortfall. Yup. He just opened the snowmobilers’ cookie jar and helped himself to $1 million just like that. And the same with other funds too. Here’s a few excerts from an article in the Press & Sun-Bulletin (remember, you might not be able to believe the P&SB as they don’t seem to fact check):

To help balance last year’s budget, the state grabbed $1 million last month from an account paid for by snowmobile registration fees for the maintenance of trails – and snowmobilers want it back.

The snowmobile fund was one of dozens of special funds “swept” by the Paterson administration, with the permission of the Legislature, to raise $100 million to help balance the state budget last year as falling state revenues opened a budget hole.

Funds set up for purposes as diverse as controlling the population of animals ($1,020,000) to improving boater access to water ($1 million) to stimulating the creation of charter schools ($1.4 million) were dipped into to pay for general state expenses.

The reason they go after these funds?

The snowmobile-trails fund was picked because it had a balance of $5.5 million, and only $4.38 million is planned to be spent this year – which will be offset by about the same amount of new revenue, he said.

The “he” of “he said” is Paterson’s budget division spokesman Matt Anderson. You see how the mind of a liberal works, folks? The money collected from snowmobilers doesn’t belong to the snowmobilers…it belongs to the State. And the State Almighty has need of using it somewhere else. And we all worship at the alter of State Almighty.

How about this view: That money belongs to the people who paid it, and if the snowmobile fund doesn’t need that much to maintain trails and such, GIVE IT BACK! You don’t collect fees/taxes for one purpose, and do a shell game and use it to pay for other things like the country’s most lavish welfare program. It’s called theft, plain and simple.

Oh, and next year? Snowmobilers and others may want to think twice before sending in their “fees”:

Meanwhile, Anderson said, the new budget calls for additional “sweeps” of $150 million next March to balance this year’s budget. The pots from which the money would come have not yet been determined.

Welcome to New York.

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