Mike Whittemore

The budget is due in just more than 40 days, but lawmakers are wrestling with the fact that about one third of the governor’s spending plan remains unknown because a team tasked with coming up with some $3 billion worth of Medicaid cuts isn’t due to make a final report until March 1. That’s one month before the budget is due. This week, the team came back with 49 proposals and that has left one Assemblyman very busy, as he weeds through the plans.

Richard Gottfried is the Assembly Democrats’ representative on the team, and he is also the chair of the Assembly health committee.

State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli has taken a close look at the Governor’s spending plan, and Tuesday he issued a warning that as much as $4 billion in expected revenue might not come to pass.

He joined Liz Benjamin from New York City Wednesday.

The last undecided legislative race in the entire country came to an apparent end Wednesday – when an appellate court ruled in favor of Tom Kirwan in the 100th Assembly District. The veteran former – and perhaps returning – Hudson Valley lawmaker is leading the race for his old seat by just 15 votes.

Kirwan joined Liz Benjamin Wednesday by phone.

The current incumbent, Frank Skartados, still has the option to take the issue to the state’s highest court, but he is waiting for advice from his lawyers before making a decision.

Budget talk isn’t only dominating Albany these days. President Obama introduced his budget yesterday. And today, he defended it in a White House press conference, saying difficult fiscal times call for quote “Tough Choices”

Obama said his plan will cut the national deficit by $1.1 trillion dollars over the next decade. But Republicans don’t believe the president is doing enough to reduce spending. Some House members have even talked of a potential government shutdown if the Senate and president aren’t able to agree on billions more in savings. That didn’t work so well for Newt Gingrich, as you’ll recall. Tuesday, Obama urged all members of Congress to avoid such drastic measures.

“We’ve got to be careful,” the president said. “Again, let’s use a scalpel. Let’s not use a machete and if we do that there should be no reason at all for a government shutdown. I think people should be careful about being too loose in terms of talking about a government shutdown because this is not an abstraction. If people don’t get their Social Security checks, if they don’t get their veterans payments, basic functions shut down and that also would have adverse effect on our economic recovery. It would be destabilizing.”

The President also called on Congress to seriously consider cutting some of the nation’s biggest budget expenses – Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. Obama urged both Republicans and Democrats to stop using these entitlement programs as wedge issues with which to slam members of the opposite party.

Liz Benjamin caught up with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to ask her about the budget, and a new bill she is pushing in the Senate.

Education cuts became a flash point almost as soon as Cuomo rolled out his spending plan two weeks ago. Education advocates warn the deep reductions the governor is seeking will hurt students.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan was among those testifying at the joint legislative budget hearing Tuesday–saying New York owes millions to the Catholic school system.