Satire. This column is parody and is not a news report.
By Lyle Pennacott
ALBANY — Faced with more money than it knows what to do with, the State of New York has done what any responsible institution would do. It has bought a red plastic take-a-number machine and bolted it to the wall outside the budget office.
The machine, purchased by the entirely fictional State Office of Wish List Management, went into service minutes after the Division of the Budget posted its real Mid-Year Financial Plan Update on Friday. That update raised this year’s tax revenue forecast by $8.1 billion, projected a $9 billion surplus and cut next year’s budget gap from $6.4 billion to $2.9 billion. Most of the money is headed into reserves and early debt payments.
By Saturday morning, the line stretched past the Capitol’s Great Western Staircase, down State Street and, according to one fictional state trooper, “into a part of Albany I didn’t know had a part.”
Now serving number 1
The first ticket went to a coalition of every state agency, which arrived together at 4 a.m. carrying the flat budget requests the budget director had asked them for two weeks earlier. Each request had been printed in an extremely large font so that it would look flat from a distance.
Ticket No. 2 went to Medicaid, which did not wait in line so much as become the line.
Lawmakers of both parties took tickets three through 211. Several Democrats asked whether the machine came in a progressive model with a sliding-scale ticket. Several Republicans said they opposed the machine on principle and took five tickets each to prove it.
Real people have been warning about this moment. “Everybody has their wish list. The wish list is never fully dealt with,” State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli said this week, according to the Times Union. The Citizens Budget Commission, a fiscal watchdog, put it more bluntly in a statement: “Extra cash has a habit of burning a hole in Albany’s pocket.”
The Office of Wish List Management says it agrees with both men and has responded by laminating the tickets.
Western New York draws 4,117
Buffalo’s delegation arrived on the 6:40 a.m. Amtrak, which pulled into Albany at roughly 4 p.m. after a delay the conductor described as “normal.” By then, the machine was dispensing ticket No. 4,117.
“We’re used to it,” said Gary Wojcik, the made-up deputy liaison for the imaginary Western New York Office of Patient Waiting, who brought a folding chair, a thermos of loganberry and a Bills blanket. “We waited 25 years for a playoff win. We can wait for a sewer grant.”
Mr. Wojcik’s wish list includes money to help Niagara Falls with the $338 million sewage plant overhaul its own engineers call unaffordable, a few more plows for the side streets, and a formal acknowledgment from the State of New York that Buffalo exists west of Rochester. He said he would settle for the acknowledgment.
Erie County sent a separate delegation. When asked why the city and county didn’t simply share one ticket, both delegations said they would need to form a joint committee to study the idea, and pulled tickets 4,118 and 4,119.
The Rainy Day Fund will not come out
Not everyone is eager to spend. The real budget plan puts billions back into the state’s rainy day reserves, which the Citizens Budget Commission says will reach a record $22 billion. The fictional Rainy Day Fund itself has reportedly barricaded itself in a vault beneath the Capitol and slid a note under the door.
“It is not raining,” the note reads. “It has never been raining. Do not ask me if it is raining.”
Ottawa would like a ticket too
North of the border, Canada’s federal government is due to table its own budget on Nov. 5, and the deficit numbers are expected to look nothing like New York’s. A fictional delegation from the imaginary Finance Canada Bureau of Neighbourly Inquiries crossed the Peace Bridge on Saturday, very politely, to ask whether the take-a-number machine also took loonies.
They were told it did not. They apologized to the machine, then to the line, then to the Peace Bridge.
Now serving number 212
Whoever wins Tuesday’s election for governor will inherit the machine in January, along with a budget gap that is smaller than expected and a hallway that is fuller than ever. The Office of Wish List Management says the next governor will be issued a special gold ticket, No. 0, which grants the holder the right to stand at the front of the line and explain to everyone behind them why the money is in a vault.
As of press time, the machine was serving No. 212, a state senator who had forgotten what he asked for but remained confident it was essential.
Western New York’s delegation was last seen playing euchre in the hallway. Its members said they have plenty of time.
This column is satire. The State Office of Wish List Management, Gary Wojcik, the Western New York Office of Patient Waiting, the Finance Canada Bureau of Neighbourly Inquiries, the take-a-number machine and the talking Rainy Day Fund are fictional. The budget figures and the quotes from Comptroller DiNapoli and the Citizens Budget Commission are real; read the Buffalo Chronicle’s news report for the facts.
Featured image: illustrative photo of a take-a-number ticket dispenser, by W.carter via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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