This is a story, I suspect, we're going to be hearing many versions of in the coming year or two, until people understand what a hoax the whole thing has been.

Nassau County New York, on Long Island, is run by a county executive, with a county legislature. In late 2009, with the fiscal situation near code-red and with taxes comparatively high there as they have long been, voters elected tea-party candidate Edward Mangano as county executive. Steve Benen writes:

Mangano would slash taxes, cut spending, and create a nice little utopia. Voters loved the sound of it. A year later, "Eddie" had slashed taxes as promised, but struggled to limit public services that the community had grown to appreciate. This week, the consequences of Tea Party economics became clear -- Nassau County, facing a full-fledged fiscal crisis, saw its finances taken over by the state.

Benen then links to a thorough and devastating Reuters story retailing the whole saga. Mangano immediately undid a household energy tax. It cost the average household about $7.50 a month. Its absence is costing the county $45 million.

It goes on and on. The bottom line is a combination of heedless tax cuts that are requiring the slashing of services that no one in fact wants slashed, and fiscal sleight of hand that exposes the distance between feel-happy tea-party rhetoric and fiscal reality.

Mangano said he was wringing $61 million out of unions in concessions. But in real life, he didn't follow through:



At the end of April, Mangano met with labor leaders at Ruth's Chris Steak House in Garden City to inform them he would put $61 million in union concessions into his 2011 budget. Union leaders say they remember the dinner as not very substantive, quipping that the main decision of the evening revolved around what to order as a side dish. Carver said Mangano told him the budget item was a mere "place holder" while he pursued a possible Long Island casino project and his revamp of the county's costly property tax refund system. "He gave me the impression that this was never going to happen," said Carver, who pointed out that the $61 million reduction would be the equivalent of an 11 percent cut in police salaries.

He didn't fail to follow through because he's a weakling. He failed because people don't want cops' salaries cut by 11%.

Wednesday, the Nassau County Interim Financial Authority said the county's $2.6 billion budget was out of balance to the tune of $176 million, necessitating NIFA's takeover of the county's finances.

I hope that things like this will make people think long and hard about these issues. If you want well-paid cops and nice parks and good schools and upgraded county roadways that can handle the traffic, you have to pay for them. I'm well aware that paying taxes isn't fun. I pay high ones in Montgomery County. But things work there, generally speaking, and life is good there, and I'm happy to pay 'em. People have to learn these things in their own time, I guess.

