Blog

Requiring New York health plans to cover in vitro fertilization would add up to 1.1 percent to premiums, according to a state study belatedly released today. Read More

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is setting herself apart from many "Medicare for All" supporters by offering what sounds like a plan to pay for it. Unfortunately, the revenue source she keeps citing – a 4 percent tax on income – would fall short of what's needed by at least $1 trillion, and more likely $2 trillion, per year. Read More

The collapse of New York's effort to lure Amazon's "second headquarters" to Queens with more than $3 billion in city and state incentives sheds fresh light on a bigger, ongoing corporate subsidy—New York State's Film and TV Production Credit. Read More

Government unions aren’t letting the facts get in the way of their opposition to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s push for a permanent property tax cap. Testifying in Albany this month on Cuomo’s FY20 Executive Budget, union leaders made a number of misrepresentations regarding the cap, which since 2011 has slowed the growth of property taxes outside New York City. Read More

State Sen. Julia Salazar, a democratic socialist from Brooklyn, is backing an idea that could appeal to limited-government conservatives across New York. The first-term legislator has introduced legislation (S.3061) establishing a multi-state compact that would bar member states from offering any "company-specific subsidy." Read More

New revisions to a proposed single-payer health plan for New York State would add tens of billions dollars to the already enormous price tag – and further hinder the state's ability to control costs going forward. Read More

Governor Cuomo has announced he's flying to Washington on Tuesday to meet with President Trump to discuss the impact on New York of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap in the new federal tax law. Spoiler Alert: even assuming Trump is uncharacteristically thick-skinned in the face of Cuomo's harsh unrelenting political attacks, the SALT cap isn't going anywhere.  Read More

The New York State Teachers Retirement System (NYSTRS) will cut its employer pension rate by nearly two percentage points for 2019-20, reducing net costs to school districts by nearly $300 million. Read More

Even as Governor Cuomo pushes for required insurance coverage of in vitro fertilization, he is withholding a study of how much the coverage would cost for premium payers. Read More