Commentary

New York's mayoral candidates have paid surprisingly little attention to one issue that really sets the Big Apple apart: an extraordinarily heavy tax burden. No other big city in the country imposes such a broad array of taxes at such high levels, piling its own levies on top of those collected by Albany. For example, corporations pay a combined rate of 17.5 percent on net income allocated to New York City, roughly double the average in most of the country. At the same time, the city's property tax is engineered to fall most heavily on commercial property and apartment buildings -- contributing to sky-high rents in both categories... Read More

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said that his proposal to allow up to three casinos in upstate New York will "create thousands of new jobs where they are needed most." Now comes the small print: it turns out those jobs will be controlled mainly by the state's politically powerful labor unions, whose support the governor presumably is courting for the constitutional amendment that voters will be asked to approve this fall to legalize casino gambling on a broader scale. Read More

Under ObamaCare, the promise ran, if you have coverage you like, you’ll be able to keep it. That turned out, of course, to be untrue. Now everyone from businesses to unions is scrambling to find a survival strategy before the law’s implementation come January. Read More

When a government watchdog as knowledgeable as Steven Greenhut, a Bloomberg View contributor, writes that California deserves to knock New York out of last place in rankings of state business climates, it’s tempting to agree. If only he had a stronger case. Read More

Gov. Cuomo said last week that he’ll propose a “financial restructuring group” to help fiscally distressed local governments pursue options that would include “consolidation, mergers, shared services, reduced workforces, fewer elected officials.” Read More

A senior Albany lawmaker disclosed last week that he wants to investigate a new taxpayer-funded deal that will give state officials the right to use a luxury box at the Buffalo Bills' stadium. Read More

Echoing the bayou hunters in the reality show “Duck Dynasty,” Gov. Cuomo said last week that he’s “hap, hap happy” with his new budget. But there are at least five reasons for New Yorkers in general to be less cheerful about the state spending plan for fiscal 2013-14, which starts today. Read More

Gov. Cuomo and the Legislature reportedly are cooking up something like areprise of their December 2011 “tax reform” charade — which combined a $2.5 billion tax hike for million-dollar earners with small income-tax cuts for middle-class households. Read More

Gov. Cuomo is cruising toward his third consecutive on-time state budget, which will no doubt be cited as further evidence that a new era of fiscal responsibility has dawned in Albany. Yet the governor hasn’t turned his back on budget gimmickry. Read More

Police and firefighter unions in New York have reaped a bonanza from the state law allowing them to insist on binding arbitration of their contract impasses. Read More

Former New York Mayor Edward I. Koch, who died this week at 88, exemplified two extremes of budget politics in America’s largest city. When he was elected mayor in 1977, New York was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Read More

The state's largest public union is right. Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposal to "smooth" pensions for local governments and school districts is "a bait-and-switch scheme ... that will allow public employers to underfund their pension obligations," as the Civil Service Employees Association described it last week. Read More