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Mayor Bill de Blasio says the wealthiest New Yorkers should "chip in a little extra"—a mere $800 million in higher income taxes, or an average of $25,000 per affected household—to pay for subway improvements and transit fare subsidies. But given Washington's tax reform agenda, de Blasio's latest soak-the-rich tax hike proposal is badly timed. Read More

New York State's unfunded liability for other post-employment benefits (OPEB) grew to $87.3 billion in fiscal 2017, a $9.4 billion increase over the previous year, according to a disclosure in the state Budget Division's just-released Financial Plan Update for the first quarter of fiscal 2017. Read More

Last week, Governor Andrew Cuomo staged a series of upstate ribbon-cutting events at which he again touted the region's economic progress. Today came something of a reality check: the monthly state Labor Department jobs report, which showed weak year-to-year private employment growth in upstate's largest metro areas. Read More

Washington lawmakers are contemplating fallback healthcare legislation that risks repeating one of Albany’s most notorious policy blunders – and triggering a “death spiral” in non-group insurance markets nationwide. Read More

Seemingly stalled on health care and Medicaid, congressional Republicans and the Trump administration will soon turn their attention to taxes—another area in which federal reform offers mixed prospects for New York State. Read More