Blog

A bill pending in the state Senate would weaken a key underpinning of welfare reform -- the Work Experience Program, or WEP. This is a one-house measure for now, and it's sponsored by a member of the democratic minority, to boot. But many of Albany's worst ideas have been born as one-house minority bills, so this one bears watching. Read More

Another sign of the permanent structural change in New York’s state and city tax base: today’s warning by Fitch Ratings that the world’s largest banks (including NY-based Goldman and Chase) will need to raise $566 billion to satisfy new capital requirements to protect against capital shocks. Read More

A forthcoming academic study will provide further evidence that a proposed increase in New York State's minimum wage will destroy job opportunities for young people. Read More

The Citizens Budget Commission has posted some nifty charts breaking out the difference between New York State and the U.S. averages for different categories of public elementary and secondary school spending. One noteworthy data point: between 1999 and 2009, spending per pupil on employee benefits for instructional staff rose 169 percent in New York... Read More

On Saturday, the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) got the terms of its new $47.5 million contract with the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents 3,000 bus drivers in Queens and Staten Island. Read More

Forty-nine school districts* were seeking to override the state's new property tax cap in yesterday's school budget votes. Of those, our review of regional media coverage suggests 30 districts* passed an override, while 19 districts voted their budgets down. Seven of the proposed overrides failed to collect even 50 percent of the vote. Read More

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s propensity for creating advisory committees, commissions and task forces — more than two dozen in all — is the subject of an article in today’sWall Street Journal Read More

The fact that markets are flat after la crise JPMorgan Chase came to light -- and that JPM stock is down only 7.3 percent as of this writing -- shouldn't be a comfort to anyone. Read More

Nicole Gelinas — Manhattan Institute senior fellow, City Journal contributing editor and frequent blogger here — wrote a tough column in the New York Post yesterday, criticizing Governor Cuomo’s nomination of former Governor David Paterson for appointment to an open seat on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) board. The choice, Nicole said, was tantamount to “business-as-usual New York" ... Read More