Unfortunately the way things are reading our future appears to be very bleak here in NY.  I can only think of a drunk driver behind the wheel of a car thinking what a great driver they are until they slam into a tree. No telling what can happen with a governor drunk on power can do but I guess we will wait and see since we are only along for the ride.

Are we there yet?  

http://nypost.com/2017/07/16/yet-more-proof-of-the-billions-gov-cuomo-keeps-wasting/

When I look at all the debt municipalities have accumulated over the decades, and continue to do so with wild abandon, I am convinced that the real plan is to eventually declare bankruptcy on a massive scale and wipe out all the investor backed debt in one felt swoop. The only advantage this debt ever really had for investors was the interest income being tax free. For this reason, New York State, counties and towns will keep issuing debt and spending privately knowing they will never fully pay it all back. My own town, Oyster Bay, has a problem in that area now because the ratings agencies and SEC figured out the scam and we are now junk rated. The town is still issuing debt to investors stupid enough to loan money BUT we are paying significantly more interest. 

So Cuomo will spend what he wants knowing it is free money that will only be partially paid back. Friends will have their pockets lined and he will be reelected due to his pork spending.  The irony is the state constitution prohibits state debt but they got around that through the use of authorities. 

Towns, States, Cities, and good ol' Uncle Sam have been doing this for decades with reckless abandon, knowing it'll all get pushed down the road to the next politician and/or generation until it collapses, they they'll call Shemittah and re-set back to zero for what they owe, but not for what they are owed.  
Ironically of the US Military if your unit does not "have funds" then you don't get to spend money.....I've seen vehicles sit for months waiting for a few dollars worth of parts, too bad we can't make the rest of the Governments behave that way.  

What stops this from happening?

My avatar is a very expensive panoramic view of NYC which is not required to carry out the states business.  Just about anything you step foot into is owned by a sub agency of a few massive agencies which is an oligopoly. So we are fucked.................

I really don't know...."Creative Accounting" bogus Bonds, robbing Peter to pay Paul, and of course there are Credit Cards issued to Governments by BoA, Citi, etc.
Really, with the Military you cannot charge or spend funds that are not directly in place and assigned to a specific purpose; doing so, will get you fired (Civilian Employees) and Administratively punished (UCMJ Action) for Soldiers.

Another little tid-bit worth mentioning with Government Budgets:
Departments, matters not if its the local Parks & Recreation or the State Department of the United States ALL "increase" their budgets every year. eg "our operating budget for FY2017 was $100,000 and our projected budget for 2018 is $110,000. and this is where the games begin:
With Uncle Sam, they'll get the $100,000 but may not get the additional 10K, and by cutting  the request even one cent the claim of "budget cuts" or "reducing the budget" may be used, so the next time someone is bitching about their allocations being "cut" just remember that Leaders are big on word play and that what's being claimed isn't exactly the reality of the matter.  

Where we live is mostly rural Dairy Farming, and fifty years ago there were literally hundreds of Farms, some of which made a living milking a dozen or so cows, then Big Govt. got involved setting a "too be determined" price for the product they produced forcing Farmers to "get big or go under."
Big Corporations with their Lawyers and Bought & Paid for Legislators/Bureaucrats make the rules/Laws that favor them  not us.

I wish more people realized how this worked - only in government can you brag about slashing the budget for "xyz" program (cutting defense if you're a leftie, cutting welfare if you're a republican) and actually be spending more money on it than the year before.  Just something to keep the sheeple and lemmings riled up so they don't notice how corrupt and inefficient their local, state and federal governments really are.

Well I guess we can rise-up with net neutrality. If you leave the internet alone who the fuck is getting hurt? But no! the.gov has got to get their hands in it so they can reap da monies and the dummies like us can continue to act like nothing is happening.  We have jobs so we needs to stay busy. Idiots !

Not always.
Starting about a decade or more ago our county started requiring that department heads submit a budget that was 10% smaller than the previous years budget.
Overages to the mandated cuts were considered on a department by department basis.
This went on for several years.
There's only so far you can cut before you start affecting essential services.
It got to the point where our civil division had half the people it had had a decade prior.
Want to know why permits and other civil stuff started taking so long?
That's a major reason why.
Cars in the fleet used to go away at 90,000 miles or about two years.
Now they're seeing 130K or more, expensive break downs are the norm and some days you have to look for a car that will reliably run and everything in it works the way it's supposed to.

My part time agency just gave back $30,000 to the village at the end of its fiscal year.
This is after we sustained a 20% budget cut a couple of years ago.
May not sound like a lot, but when you have an entire departments budget that's in the mid 6 figures, 30K is a LOT, especially after already taking a 20% cut.
I would like to have bought stuff we needed for the firearms program, like red dot sights for the ARs or a third rifle for our patrol car fleet.

At my old PT agency some of the younger newer officers are wearing body armor that's almost as old as they are.
Last year the village fathers asked that agency head why officer turnover was so high.
he was honest and said that they paid the lowest salary of any village in the county.
So the village fathers authorized a pay increase, but didn't provide any additional funding for the increase.
So an already financially strapped agency that's limping along on donated electronics from bigger agencies and a bare bones budget already, had to dig even deeper to find basic operational funding from a small budget.
I'm not sure how  they're managing.

Budgets in local LE are not exactly swimming in cash these days.

Meh, if government, at all levels, didn't think it was its job to hand out free money to all the FSA everywhere, maybe they'd have some money to pay for services good people actual need and deserve...

But, no, they want to buy the votes of the ever increasing FSA, and when the FSA gets big enough to out vote people who work, and pay taxes, its truly done...nothing left but enslavement and doom, or Civil War, take your pick.

I say cut off all but absolute minimal social welfare of any kind....and in the words of Ivan Drago, if they die, they die. No fucks given here....YMMV.

Well, Medicaid is a mandated cost by the State to the counties, which is bullshit in the first place, its just passing the buck.

Additionally, NYS has the gold plated Lear jet of Medicaid plans...those FSA with Medicaid receive far more benefits than most people with private or Obama Care  plans...its ridiculously expensive, and fraud is rampant.

And I think ultimately Medicaid is forced on the states by the Fed....

Essentially its a giant plan to buy FSA votes. It should be gone, or reduced in scope at least 87%.  ..

The refugees....again, vote buying, they know they will vote dem, and they can use them to overwhelm actual working people.

All this is just buying votes to ensure a Democratic hegemony that will be unbreakable in the future, and is the path to the wet dream of the libs, full blown Communism....

Take away all the FSA vote buying fraud programs (Medicaid, Foodstamps, HEAP, etc, etc...) and then you'll have money to fix police cars, etc....but fixing police cars, and beefing up First Responder staffing doesn't buy you votes from the FSA....so the priorities are what the priorities are....