Commentary

Don’t look now, but a quick deal to sidestep the federal government’s fiscal cliff could end up pushing New York state to the edge of its own precipice. Yet top New York officials seem oblivious to a wave of federal tax hikes due to hit the state’s tax base as soon as next month. Read More

New York operates the largest network of programs for the poor in the nation. It serves more than 5 million Medicaid clients at a cost of $54 billion annually. Read More

One year ago, as Andrew Cuomo was about to wrap up his first year in the New York governor's office, the governor and state legislative leaders agreed on a series of personal income tax provisions they described in a joint news release as "fair tax reform that achieves the first major restructuring of the tax code in decades." Read More

Sooner or later, New York will recover from the physical effects of this week’s super-storm, just as it did from the cataclysm of 9/11. Read More

By capping property taxes, Gov. Cuomo has tapped the brakes on local government and school spending outside New York City. He’s also taken steps to limit the growth in the local share of Medicaid over the next few years, and to curb public pension expenses further down the road. Read More

Medicaid, America’s safety-net program for more than 62 million low-income uninsured Americans, is broken. It’s broken at the state level, where program costs are swamping state budgets. Read More

So it’s unanimous: All five of the leading prospective Democratic candidates for mayor are now on record in support of raising New York City’s top income tax rate. Read More

In his controversial "47 percent" remarks, Mitt Romney nailed one fact: Nearly half of Americans do not pay income tax. Read More

Residents of the metropolitan area pay some of the highest energy prices in the nation -- fully 50 percent above the national average for electricity and 21 percent above average for natural gas, according to the latest federal data. Unfortunately, the situation is only likely to get worse in years ahead, thanks in part to New York State energy policy that seems grounded mainly in wishful thinking. Read More

Back in 2005, a Suffolk County grand jury was convened to investigate waste, fraud and fiscal mismanagement in Suffolk's public schools. Among its key findings was "an abject lack of transparency" regarding the area where school districts spend the vast bulk of their funds: salaries and benefits. Read More

Over the past 37 years, starting with the near-bankruptcy of the Big Apple, serious fiscal crises in New York local governments have unfolded at a rate of one or two per decade. Read More

It’s no secret that skyrocketing public pension costs are putting tremendous pressure on state and local budgets in New York and across the country. But taxpayers also face another enormous liability: retiree health-care costs. Read More