What's wrong with this picture?

Ask business and government leaders what's wrong with the way New York operates, and these are some of the things they will tell you:

• Borrowed $4.2 billion to close the budget gap. The cash, borrowed from the payments due to the state over the next 17 years from tobacco companies in settlement of a lawsuit, is to be used to pay for ongoing expenses.

• Failed to limit the choice of drugs Medicaid recipients can use for some routine ailments, like arthritis and stomach acid. The measure, enacted by about 30 other states, would have saved New York taxpayers about $130 million.

• Failed to enact any steps local governments said were needed to help control taxes. Those include getting rid of a law that makes governments award four contracts for big public-works projects and another that gives a state panel the final say over the salaries of local police and firefighters. Another would have limited the payments of lawsuits by local governments in a procedure similar to one that limits awards against the state.

• Voted, over Pataki's veto, to take more than $2.5 billion in New York City debt incurred in the 1970s and have it picked up by state taxpayers, at a cost of about $2.6 billion in additional interest over 30 years.

• Failed to enact limits in the length of time injured workers can collect benefits — a provision unique to New York that helps to account for workers compensation insurance rates being out of line with the rest of the country, even though weekly benefits that injured workers are paid are among the lowest in the country.

• Left intact the "scaffold law'' that makes employers liable for all injuries incurred by a fall on a work site — even if the person injured was drunk, under the influence of drugs or even trying to steal property.

• Didn't change the "vicarious-liability'' statute, a law unique to New York that makes car-leasing companies liable for claims against their customers.