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Senate Republicans today unveiled some new proposed personal income tax (PIT) adjustments that would generate savings for middle-class families.* For a couple with income of $70,000 and two children under 17, the potential annual tax cut from the proposed Family Tax Relief Act would appear to come to roughly $700... Read More

In line with New York’s motto — “Excelsior” — the state assumes its tax receipts are headed ever upward. Late last week, Governor Cuomo and legislative leaders announced they had agreed to a consensus forecast adding $200 million to the combined receipts... Read More

Carl Schramm, entrepreneurially minded economist and professor at Syracuse University, worries that “economic amnesia” may hinder the long-term recovery prospects of Syracuse — and, by implication, other once-dynamic upstate cities. Read More

The statewide teachers union is celebrating a court ruling that, in contravention of long-established precedents, would allow the New York State Teachers Retirement System to treat the identities of its pension recipients as confidential information. The Empire Center will be seeking leave to appeal the case, as our director, Tim Hoefer, announced yesterday. Read More

Assembly Democrats have introduced eight bills to sweeten pensions, the Citizens Budget Commission pointed out yesterday. Here’s a nice CBC chart summarizing those measures. By far the costliest, sponsored by Assemblymen Peter Abbate and William Colton of Brooklyn, would boost the salary “multiplier” used to calculate pensions for employees with more than 30 years service. Read More

To no one’s surprise, the statewide teachers’ union today filed suit to overturn New York’s local property tax cap. NYSUT has enlisted some parents of school children as co-plaintiffs, but the chief motive here is obvious: the tax cap is likely to limit future increases in teacher compensation, which is by far the largest category of local school expenditures. Read More

Kathy Marchione, 58, “retired” as Saratoga County Clerk before taking office as a state senator this year. That reportedly qualified her to start collecting a $66,000 pension—the equivalent of a job paying over $70,000 a year, after adjusting for the fact that pensions are not subject to payroll or state income taxes. Which is not too shabby, considering the average private sector pay in the Capital Region was just over $43,000 as of 2011... Read More

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to wire one-fifth of new parking spaces in New York City for electric vehicles would “force the private sector to build charging stations for a fleet of cars that don’t exist and probably won’t exist for years to come, if ever,” energy analyst Robert Bryce of the Manhattan Institute writes in today’s New York Post. Read More