Commentary

In the middle of its worst economic downturn since the 1930s, New York State has just enacted its biggest personal income-tax hike since 1961. Read More

Few Albany policy fights in recent memory have generated more heat and less light than the dispute over whether to extend higher state income-tax rates on high-income households. Read More

During his first six months in office, New York governor Andrew Cuomo pulled off something of a fiscal trifecta: closing a $10 billion state-budget gap without raising taxes, capping local-property-tax levies, and wringing concessions out of state-government labor unions. Read More

New York state’s mid-year financial plan update was due on Oct. 31, and state agency heads were scheduled to present their budget requests at hearings last week. Read More

During his first six months in office, New York governor Andrew Cuomo pulled off something of a fiscal trifecta: closing a $10 billion state-budget gap without raising taxes, capping local-property-tax levies, and wringing concessions out of state-go Read More

If there’s one thing the Occupy Wall Street crowd agrees on, it’s that New York should expand its “millionaire tax” on high-income earners. Read More

Gov. Cuomo’s operations chief yesterday was quick to blast the leadership of the Public Employees Federation for “failing to effectively communicate the benefits” of a tentative contract deal that PEF members voted overwhelmingly to reject. Read More

The Port Authority toll-hike outrage is a signal to Govs. Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie, who control the agency for New York and New Jersey: The Downtown reconstruction project is consuming tolls that should go to bridge and tunnel work, not to real estate. Read More

When the New York State and Local Pension fund announced last month that it had earned 14.6 percent on investments this fiscal year, a top NY union official said the robust returns “call into question the need for so-called “pension reform.” Since then, however, the Standard & Poor’s 500 has dropped about 13 percent. Read More

The cover of New York state's latest budget update features a photo taken from within a Central Park tunnel, looking out toward a path curving up a gentle incline through a verdant landscape. Read More

The governor who led New York State out of the fiscal crisis of the 1970s died Sunday at the age of 92. Read More

New York has always paid its pension bills on time," state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said recently. We've heard that boast from the comptroller before. Unfortunately, that's only technically true. Under a 2010 budget provision championed by DiNapoli himself, the state is now delaying payment of significant portions of its pension bills. Read More