Before presenting his first budget proposal on Tuesday, Gov. James E. McGreevey promised to end the state's bad fiscal habits of excessive borrowing, profligate spending and reliance on one-time measures to increase state revenues.
Mr. Orban has relied on one-time measures, including the effective nationalization of $13 billion of mandatory private pension-fund assets and extraordinary industry taxes to control the budget.
The city closed a gap of almost $5 billion in the budget that went into effect on July 1 with lots of one-time measures that will not be available again, including borrowing $1.5 billion.
These one-time measures do little to eliminate the state's heavy reliance on income taxes and capital gains taxes, and still leave the treasury vulnerable to the vagaries of the stock market and the dot-com economy.
The projected losses in the current quarter would be a slight improvement on the third quarter, when the company lost 7 cents a share excluding the one-time measures.
"These one-time measures can be very addictive to governments," he added.
And the easy pickings, the one-time measures that come from accelerated tax collections and delayed payments?
Between 2010 and 2012, financing fell by about $2.5 billion, or nearly 6 percent, although some of this was mitigated by one-time measures, like spending from reserves.
Over the past decade, the report said, New York had postponed a reckoning by using one-time measures to produce $25 billion in revenue.
Where the governor would cut spending, Mr. Kruger and the Senate prefer one-time measures like restructuring the state's tobacco bonds, a move that would increase New York's debt burden.
In its statement, Moody's warned against one-time measures to close the gap, saying the state must address a stubborn reality: It is spending more than its revenue will support.
