So what was the point of Cuomo's deep budget cuts again?

I get that this year's budget was going to be a rough one and that a lot was going to be sacrificed to put the state on a sustainable economic footing.  I also understand Cuomo's desire to get off on the right foot with the general public by not raising taxes and pushing for an on-time budget even if a lot of the state's varying constituencies were going to be hurt.  I don't get his absolute refusal to put some kind of surcharge on the wealthiest New Yorkers on the table.  In fact, I didn't even see much in print about why this was the case. I spent some time today scanning a number of articles on budget fallout and I really didn't see any kind of justification either economic, moral or otherwise made for this position.  I know the traditional argument is that "we're driving wealthy people and businesses out of state" (can't you just see the "for-sale" signs all over Central Park West as boatloads of wealthy New Yorkers abandon us for Hoboken?) but even that argument was only alluded to and mostly by Skelos and the republicans.  I'm really straining to see what benefit the state got out of it to compensate for the loss of revenue.  It's not as if the wealthiest didn't already get a wonderful tax package on the federal level.  It seems to me that the only thing we got out of it is that our Governor can claim at some point in the future that he balanced the budget without raising taxes.  Great for him.