Blog

A couple of weeks ago, the Citizens Budget Commission released accruing to recent retirees from the New York City government, from firefighters to teachers to administrative assistants. How much would it cost you -- if you're a private-secto Read More

New York City and state continue to lose Wall Street jobs in disproportionate numbers compared to the rest of the country. Read More

Peterson Foundation president David Walker made a salient point today at the Regional Plan Association's : we don't spend enough on infrastructure, but we probably spend too much on other stuff. Read More

In yesterday's column, Daily News  Errol Louis quotes Lillian Roberts, the head of the city's civilian DC-37 union, saying that "When our people retire, the average one will receive something like $20,000 a year." Read More

New York State and City continue to put faux pressure on municipal unions to win cost-savings concessions on pensions and healthcare costs for state and city taxpayers. Coincidentally, bond-raters at Moody's have just come out with a report that says Read More

Small towns are losing millions of dollars on derivatives bets just when they can least afford to lose money. Why are we surprised? Read More

With enactment of the 2009-10 New York State budget, "New York will leapfrog New Jersey to claim the mantle of America's worst tax code for business." Read More

The Journal that the Chicago airport privatization, announced late last year, may falter. The deal, under which Citigroup (yes, that Citigroup) and John Hancock are supposed to pay more than $2.5 billion upfront to lease Chicago's Midway Read More

How big is the spending increase in the newly adopted New York State budget?   How does it compare to previous spending trends?  One of the many glaring shortcomings of the state budget process is that it is not possible to answer such questions w Read More

A federal judge has ruled that the destitute town of Vallejo, California, which filed for Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy last year, can petition the bankruptcy court to allow it to void and renegotiate labor agreements with local unions. Read More

[See update at end of item.] Buried in one of the now pending in Albany is what looks like a $1 billion federal stimulus aid slush fund, which could be "suballocated" by the governor to "to any state department, agency or public authorit Read More

Ratings agency Moody's has put the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority in a sort of purgatory, noting (but more diplomatically than I will) that Albany's utter failure to solve a relatively simple problem "puts the MTA on an operating p Read More