Cutting The Things People Love

Today's newspaper features a budget story quoting legislator John Gullo, D-Fredonia.

That story can be read by clicking here.

At one point during Friday's day-long Audit and Control Committee meeting, Gullo said he was only supporting some changes to the tentative budget so that the ideas will go to the full legislature for vote later this month.

He also stressed that if those changes are not balanced by actual cuts, he will not be voting for the budget - or to override the 2 percent tax cap.

What follows are additional comments from Gullo not included in today's article:

"If, on balance, I see that the legislature will have the guts to cut the things that people love, okay? The guts to cut the things that people love. If they show that, I can support some things.

But if they don't have the guts to cut the things that people love, I'm not sure I can support that and I think I'm just making a mess that has to be cleaned up in the future. And then I would be hypocritical which I really don't want to be. I've criticized prior budgets for this (deferring costs, one-time revenues) and doing it now is very difficult for me because I'm really not that kind of a person."

When questioned about the bipartisan nature of the changes which passed the Audit and Control Committee, Gullo said:

"This is the wackiest committee you will ever see. There's no politics at this table, either.

That's the one thing about the seven of us is that we're the ones who care the least about the politics. And then the farther out you get, you see a little bit more of that. I'm not thinking about who is going to get elected better based upon what I'm doing. If anybody ever got that impression, I'd say: 'You're nuts.'"