A budget crisis of the state’s making

It’s a truism of politics: In times of economic collapse, hard-liners seek scapegoats to blame rather than bipartisan solutions to offer hope.

Add conservative rage to the debate on how to handle New York state’s latest fiscal crisis, in which we have Democratic Gov. David Paterson once again calling for immediate cuts in education and health care. To close a shortfall in the state budget, Paterson recently proposed reducing spending by $1.8 billion in the coming months, including, among other items, $500 million in cuts to state agencies, $480 million to local school districts and $287 million to Medicaid.

Conservatives pounced. You see, they said, high salaries and overly generous benefits paid to state, school and hospital workers are bankrupting New York. We need to reduce staffs, make sure workers pay higher insurance premiums, and eliminate their pensions and replace them with 401(k)s. Otherwise, the state will crumble around our ears.

Never let a good crisis go to waste, I suppose.

Here’s the problem, especially in Nassau County: It’s really, really expensive to live here, so if you pay government workers anything less than they’re getting now, they’ll simply move elsewhere, like everyone else.

According to Onboard Infomatics, it’s 1.5 times more expensive to live in Nassau than the rest of the country. Property taxes play a part in the equation, but more than that, it’s the housing prices.

In 2007, at the height of the housing boom, the average Nassau County home (we’re talking about a three-bedroom, two-bathroom split in a nice neighborhood) went for $589,000. Even now, at the height of the housing decline, the average price is $450,000, Onboard says. My colleague Al D’Amato pointed out in a recent column that “$200,000 a year ... for many is the basic cost of living in Nassau County.”