Some thoughts on Governor Paterson's today that he expects his forthcoming 2010-11 Executive Budget to result in a 2011-12 "surplus" of $1 billion that he will propose using for "property tax relief" in the form of a new "circuit-breaker" income tax Read More
In a to the New York Post this morning and again in an Upper West Side protest, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn repeated her demand that the MTA spend $100 million in money earmarked for capital investments on its operating expenses Read More
The Municipal Market Advisors research firm expects "record municipal borrowing of up to $450 billion in 2010," largely because of "the generous subsidy" offered by the federal government as part of the Obama administration's spring 2009 stimulus pl Read More
Daily News columnist Bill Hammond that the Empire Center's new Blueprint for a Better Budget, which proposes $30 billion in savings over three years, should be "required reading for Gov. Paterson and all 212 members of the Legislature," an Read More
New York local governments, including New York City, share the cost of social services and Medicaid, which elsewhere are borne mainly at the state level. Nonetheless, New York's state government spends considerably more than the national average, a Read More
New York is running out of cash, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli today. The situation would be worse if Governor Paterson had not , prompting the New York State United Teachers union to file a against him. But don't worry-- will soon be bailing us Read More
In 2000, state and local governments collectively owed $1.5 trillion (adjusted for inflation to 2009 dollars). Today, they owe $2.3 trillion, a 53 percent increase. Over the same time period, American consumers and homeowners hiked their own debt Read More
is this week's most-hated transit provider, leaving 100,000 passengers stranded in London, Paris, or somewhere in between because mucked up the high-speed trains that carry people in the undersea tunnel between Britain and France. Read More
Are New York's public authorities fixed? Little more than a week ago, Gov. Paterson signed a bill to ." But State Senator Bill Perkins of Harlem thinks that the convolutions New York's Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) put itself through t Read More
The NYT hosted an online on how to fix the MTA today. Here are some deeper #s: In 2004, MTA labor spending was $5 billion. Today, it's nearly $7 billion. (Look for yourself and .) If it had kept up with inflation between '04 and '09, it Read More
Mayor Bloomberg, enlightenedly governing from Copenhagen via the World Wide Web this week, had the following to say about the dim-bulb, smaller-carbon-footprinted folks back home to CNBC: "I don't think that congestion pricing and thos Read More
A court decision upholding a three-year, 11.5 percent pay raise for New York City transit workers should make local governments elsewhere nervous. State Supreme Court Justice O. Peter Sherwood has upheld an arbitration panel award to the Transport Read More