Tough choices, big decisions loom in 2012

The year 2012 seems very far away. We still have to get through the next eight months and survive a shaky economy, high unemployment and the early stirrings of the next presidential campaign. But one thing is for sure: 2012 will be a year of accountability for lots of people.

President Obama will face the voters, and he will have an opponent who will call him to task for whatever he hasn’t fixed. Members of Congress will have just as tough a job. The Democratic Party will remind the voters of what the Republicans did to the country, and vice versa.

New York state voters will have a lot of hard choices to make based on all of this year’s happenings in Albany. The new state budget is loaded with deep cuts in many areas. It takes time for cuts in education, health care and human services to trickle down to local communities, but they will hit between now and next June.

For a variety of reasons, New Yorkers will dodge some bullets this year. School districts on Long Island and elsewhere will be forced to use long-held reserves, and most will try to maintain the same level of education programming, but there will be hurt for many. In at least eight communities, union members have agreed to forgo salary increases in order to save the jobs of younger teachers. Unfortunately, there are other unions that have not offered to make the same sacrifice.

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed a new budget that calls for the elimination of at least 5,000 teachers’ jobs. The City Council will attempt to raid the mayor’s reserve funds in the hope that it can avoid chaos in the schools. But even if mass layoffs can be avoided, 2012 promises to be worse, when there will be no easy money left.

Health care for New York’s citizens will take a major hit in the months ahead. The State Legislature has approved dramatic cutbacks in many programs, and the elderly who rely on home health care will find that those services are dramatically reduced. Hospitals all over the state will see their federal and state funds dry up due to actions taken by Congress and Albany.