Governor Cuomo has launched yet another broadside at the Trump administration over implementation of the new federal tax law. Read More
Blog
Claims about an "age tax" in the House GOP's health care overhaul are particularly misleading in the context of New York's insurance market. Read More
Gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon cited a lot of statistics in favor of single-payer health care in her debate with Governor Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday, but most of them were confused, misleading or false. Read More
When motorists in New York top off their gas tanks this Labor Day weekend, they’ll be paying an average of about 45 cents per gallon in state and local fuel taxes—the 5th highest total in the nation, and second highest in the Northeast. Read More
When it comes to rhetorical use of upstate New York unemployment statistics, Governor Cuomo is consistent. Unfortunately, he's consistently misleading. The latest example came at today's ribbon-cutting today for the new 136,000-square-foot Expo Center at the state fairgrounds in Syracuse, where Cuomo delivered a roughly 25-minute stream-of-consciousness riff that focused on what he portrayed as an economic turnaround in upstate and the Syracuse area. Read More
State officials are still working overtime to shield government unions from the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Janus v. AFSCME. This week, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office has issued new guidelines effectively giving the unions the first say on efforts by employees to opt out of union dues payments. Read More
For New Yorkers wondering whether a statewide single-payer plan would be feasible and affordable, the RAND Corporation’s just-published report provides only partial answers. Read More
Desperate to minimize a potential loss of dues under a recent Supreme Court ruling, one of New York State’s largest public employee unions is telling public employers to disregard the union’s own previously stated conditions for letting workers stop paying dues. The tactic employed by the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) in response to the Janus v. AFSCME decision will put local governments in a bind—which is likely to end up generating added legal bills for taxpayers. Read More
New York's unfunded liability for state government retiree health coverage has reached $90.5 billion—an increase of $3 billion over last year's estimate, and nearly $13 billion in just two years, according to the just-released First Quarterly Update to the state's FY 2019 Financial Plan. The liability for other post-employment benefits, or OPEB, reflects the net present value of continuing state health insurance coverage available to all employees who retire directly from a state government payroll after at least 10 years of service. Read More
This is only the latest instance in which politics seem to be taking precedence over public interest at a consumer-focused regulatory agency. Read More
As the state awaits the RAND Corp.’s analysis of a proposed single-payer health plan for New York, the organization’s study of a similar plan in Oregon offers a potentially instructive preview. Read More
Congressional Republicans today unveiled a summary of their plans for permanently extending last year's federal income tax cuts—presumably (but not explicitly) subsidized by a permanent $10,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions. Read More