It’s unclear whether any of the indiscriminate personnel and projects cuts made by DOGE will end up saving any money, on their own, or end up costing half a trillion due to the inability of the IRS to collect taxes. Claims of vast savings have proven to be false, whether because the Muskrats aren’t very good at math or because they fail to grasp how government works. Then there’s the problem of impounding allocations made by Congress, which mean judges keep enjoining just because it’s unconstitutional.

Of course, there is no savings when money spent by the federal government comes in return for services provided that people want and need. If you decide not to buy a new computer, did you save a grand or did you lose a computer? If you needed that computer, you didn’t save anything.

But all that aside, there is a second round coming about which few have given much thought. States get money from the feds to fund a variety of programs, from federal mandates like the IDEA to school lunch programs. States prepare budgets based upon the funds they anticipate coming from the federal government. At least they did when they had a clue what the feds would do.

The uncertainty over the looming federal cuts means that whatever budget deal is approved by the governor and legislative leaders may need to be altered substantially, and quickly.

It’s just hard to know where the cuts might come and how they could affect the state’s finances.

“If and when we lose federal dollars in various categories, we are going to have to completely re-evaluate sections of the budget or perhaps the whole budget,” said State Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat who leads the Finance Committee.

New York is supposed to submit its budget on April 1st. Whether it does so or ends up being delayed, which wouldn’t exactly be unusual, it’s likely to be fictional budget since the state has no clue whether it will get the $90+ billion anticipated.

The three leaders, all Democrats, have said that the cuts being discussed are far too vast for the state to cover. In the fiscal year ending this month, New York received an estimated $96 billion from the federal government, with roughly $57 billion going to the state’s Medicaid program. About $10 billion went to schools, about $4 billion to law enforcement and public safety and $2.5 billion to transportation programs.

If it turns out that the state doesn’t get its anticipated federal funding, one of two things has to happen. Either the state has to make sharp cuts in services or the state has to vastly increase taxes. And neither is likely to prove acceptable or viable. We’re used to government providing services. We want government to provide services. Sure, there are funds put to foolish use, whether vanity projects or projects whose purpose is to promote fantasy ideology. But those are minimal compared with things that cost big bucks, like Medicaid. No matter how little you care about the health of the poor, do you really want to step over dead bodies in the street for lack of adequate health care?

New York is a high tax state already, a great deal of money is squandered due to excessive regulation and overly generous giveaways to prove how empathetic the state can be with other people’s money. We could surely stand a bit of belt tightening, even if there are some New Yorkers who say they are thrilled to pay taxes for their pet projects.

But this isn’t going to be good, old fashioned, belt tightening, or a good time to review expenses to decide what is really important and what is not. We’re not talking about eliminating bells and whistles. This will give rise to a wholesale collapse of government services, as the lost funds are far too extreme to fix with a cut here and there. And nobody is thinking about what is about to happen.