Gov. Paterson says he remains "optimistic" that a new state budget will be adopted by the legislature by Friday.
"I don’t like to predict the future. I think I’ll stick with optimism," he said."They are, you know, proceeding…Technical stuff gets in the way. But you know we’re nearing completion." Asked about obstacles, Paterson said, "A major hurdle? Typing. I may have to go do it myself."
Paterson said the April 1 deadline for a new budget is comparable to that for a school term paper which cannot be ignored or explained away. "That’s why I tried to do it. So, we may be timely but I recognize that it’s not within the constitutional deadline. I did the best that I could and now we want to have hopefully a timely budget and an effective budget."
Paterson said he was unaware of any effort to incorporate congestion pricing in the same deal. His comments came after a closed-door meeting with Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Brunswick).
James T. Madore