In cutting the figurative ribbon on a big Capital Region highway project, Governor Andrew Cuomo made a convincing argument against his own policy of steering state work to building trade unions. Read More
Blog
At the midway point of the fiscal year, New York's Medicaid health plan has already spent 61 percent of its state-funded budget, according to the latest cash report from the comptroller's office – putting the program on track to end the year with a $2.9 billion shortfall. Read More
The raw politics behind giveaways to building trade unions were on display last week in Troy, a city outside Albany. Read More
The billions of dollars funneled from New York's treasury to movie and TV producers had no statistically significant impact on the industry's employment in the Empire State through 2017, according to a new multi-state study of such tax incentives. Read More
Federal officials are reviewing the state's expropriation of $2 billion from the sale of Fidelis Care health plan, potentially throwing a wrench into the Cuomo administration's plans for using the money. Read More
In what could rank among the least surprising federal court rulings of this or any year, a U.S. District Court judge in Manhattan has rejected New York's constitutional challenge to the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap in the new federal tax law. Read More
A few months before the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2018 landmark decision in Janus vs AFSCME, Governor Cuomo promised government unions the state would “do everything in its power” to “protect” them from potentially adverse consequences. Flouting the clear intent of the court—and state law—Cuomo is keeping that promise. Read More
Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York have issued an analysis suggesting that New York's minimum wage increases from 2013 to 2018 had little impact on employment in counties bordering on Pennsylvania. The Fed's economists compared employment in two low-wage sectors in the 19 contiguous border counties of New York and Pennsylvania—implicitly assuming that the counties as a group must be comparable because they are next to one another. Read More
A little-discussed hazard of creating a state-run single-payer health plan in New York would be its vulnerability to the business cycle. It would depend heavily on taxes collected from high-income New Yorkers, a source of revenue that's especially prone to booms and busts. A recession – or a downturn in the stock market – could easily open a budget hole not just in the billions of dollars, but in the tens of billions of dollars. Read More
Yesterday’s fatal truck accident outside Binghamton is a reminder that state government’s opposition to natural gas pipelines is having negative consequences—including putting more gas trucks on the road. Read More
The state subsidy package for a just-announced $1.5 billion chip fab plant outside Utica includes a sweet giveaway that will drive up the project price tag—at taxpayer expense—to give an edge to union contractors. Read More
Following the Cuomo administration’s lead, at least two financially stressed local governments in the North Country have gone out of their way to steer expensive public works contracts to construction unions—despite higher costs. Read More