One year after the U.S. Supreme Court said government workers couldn’t be forced to pay union dues, New York’s public-sector unions are concealing their losses by publishing inflated membership figures. Read More
Blog
When New York's current state budget was enacted, Governor Andrew Cuomo hailed it as "the broadest and most sweeping" of his tenure, adding that "for the ninth straight year it was both timely and fiscally responsible." "Timely," yes: budget bills were passed by the Legislature just in time for the April 1 dawn of a new fiscal year. As for "fiscally responsible"—well, that's more a matter of opinion. Read More
This year's state budget came with a hidden asterisk: In the final throes of his negotiations with legislative leaders, Governor Cuomo quietly postponed a month's worth of Medicaid payments from the last week of March to the first week of April – shifting $1.7 billion in spending from one fiscal year to the next. Read More
At Thursday night's Democratic presidential debate, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand gave a misleading description of the "Medicare for All" proposal that she says she helped to write – implying that it calls for a voluntary buy-in rather than mandatory government coverage. Read More
In the name of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the Cuomo administration has been doing everything it can to block construction of natural-gas pipelines in New York. But that policy is probably accomplishing just the reverse—increasing greenhouse gas emissions by boosting reliance on fuel oil, which results in even higher emissions. Read More
Governor Cuomo's efforts to reduce maternal mortality have put New York's doulas on the path to state regulation – and some of them want to get off. Read More
The closing days and hours of New York State’s 2019 legislative session were easily among the most economically consequential in Albany’s recent history—but not in a positive sense. Read More
The elderly share of America's population has been growing—but New York is graying more slowly. That’s among the trends to be gleaned from the latest U.S. Census estimates of population distributions by age group at the state and county level. Read More
The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act on its way to enactment in Albany would vastly expand the state government’s power to regulate every corner of New York’s economy in pursuit of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Yet even as it addresses what proponents describe as a “climate emergency,” the bill’s most controversial elements have been postponed until after the 2022 elections. Read More
In the name of lowering drug costs, state lawmakers are on the brink of passing hastily drafted and ill-considered legislation that would risk driving those costs even higher. Read More
New York City's World War II-rooted "housing emergency" is now officially indefinite—and has spread, potentially, to every corner of New York State. But the potential negative impacts of the law won't be limited to the Big Apple. The law is likely to have a chilling effect on prospects for multifamily investment and development in struggling communities across New York—especially upstate. Read More
Many of the faces have changed, and so has the majority party, but the state Senate is more united than ever in its willingness to weaken disciplinary procedures for cops and firefighters accused of wrongdoing. Read More