at his first state of the state address in january 2009, paterson said "my fellow new yorkers: let me come straight to the point—the state of our state is perilous. new york faces an historic economic challenge, the gravest in nearly a century. ... the pillars of wall street have crumbled. the global economy is reeling. trillions of dollars of wealth have vanished." new york faced a budget deficit of $15 billion, and state debt approached $55 billion. paterson's budget proposal called for dramatic across-the-board cuts to various state agencies; he described those cuts as "deep and painful". paterson also proposed to close the 81-year-old reynolds game farm, in tompkins county, the state's only remaining pheasant facility, but changed course following criticism from sportsmen's groups.