Commentary

Andrew Cuomo’s unorthodox State of the State presentation this week highlighted a disparity between his muscular rhetoric and his (so far) cautious approach to governing. Read More

In his compelling inaugural speech on New Year’s Day, Gov. Cuomo embraced “a very specific mandate for change that the people want.” Read More

The looming state budget gap, which could easily exceed $10 billion, is the most obvious and immediate challenge facing Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Read More

Defenders of public employee pension systems often make the case that pension benefits are not all that generous. The outrageous cases you see on the news — Long Island police retiring in their 40s with pensions in excess of base pay, administrators “retiring” with six-figure pensions and then going back to work with another government agency, one ex-FDNY firefighter running marathons on his $86,000 “disability” pension — are the exceptions, they say. Read More

In November 2003, the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research issued a report describing New York state’s public-pension system as “a ticking fiscal time bomb. Read More

Advocates of the misnamed “millionaire’s tax” enacted in New York State last year claimed that it would restore “fairness” to a tax code that favored the rich. Read More

The challenges confronting Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo won’t be limited to closing a state budget gap now estimated at between $9 billion and $11 billion. Cuomo and the Legislature will also need to respond to growing fiscal distress among New York’s local governments. Read More

For all of Andrew Cuomo’s good intentions, Albany’s muck remains as deep as ever, with a projected 2010-11 state budget shortfall approaching $10 billion. But the fiscal quicksand needn’t swallow up the next Gov. Cuomo as it did the last one. Read More

Will Andrew Cuomo defy the special interests that have long controlled Al bany -- starting with the public-sector labor unions whose political arm endorsed him -- to deliver the kind of change he promised in his successful campaign for governor of New York? Read More

Tonight’s seven-way, 90-minute New York guber natorial debate sounds more like the premise for a TV reality show than a forum for airing the most critical issues facing the Empire State. Read More

New York state and local governments’ liabilities for retiree health coverage run to the hundreds of billions of dollars -- a burden that’s only now coming into full view. Read More

Like a leaky faucet, New York state was drip-drip- dripping businesses and jobs to other states for all but one of the 15 years leading up to the official end of the last economic expansion in 2007. Read More