NY gov offers $100M to leverage federal funds

Faced with a perfect political storm brought on by low poll numbers and declining tax revenue, New York Gov. David Paterson has come up with a novel plan aimed at ginning some big bucks for biomedical research. The governor is setting aside $100 million for research institutions in the state, and he wants to leverage each dime in that budget for $1 in federal stimulus money.

Medical research, energy and technology will all be boosted with new state money, says the governor, whose plan drew a mixed response from a wide slate of political friends and foes. Everyone, though, seemed to agree that boosting the state's research institutes, which includes some of the top biomedical research labs in the country, made sense at a time Wall Street is producing less and less tax revenue.

"We love the tax revenues [the financial markets] generate and the jobs that they create, but the concentration and dependence on any one industry is great in good times, bad in down times," said New York Mayor Bloomberg said.

F. Michael Tucker, CEO of the Center for Economic Growth, said that grant applications with state backing will stand a better chance in gaining federal support. And the research groups will be linked with private companies to help drive the fruits of their work to market.

- here's the Buffalo Business Journal story
- read the report from the New York Daily News

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