Commentary

It’s official: According to Mayor Giuliani's latest fiscal plan, the next mayor will face a budget gap of $2.7 billion - which, if it actually materializes, will be $400 million more than the one Giuliani inherited from David Dinkins. Read More

When Mayor Giuliani formally unveils his eighth and final city budget today, advocates of more expansive city spending are sure to attack his proposed tax cuts. Ironically, Giuliani will be accused of cutting taxes too much - when, if anything, he hasn't cut them nearly enough. Read More

The best that can be said of New York City's just-negotiated tentative contract with its principal public-employee union, District Council 37, is that it will expire relatively soon, in June 2002. Meanwhile, the agreement sets a costly precedent at a time when the city's budget picture is dimming. Read More

New York's top congressional Democrats have given President Bush's ambitious plan for an across-the board tax cut a chilly reception. Senator Hillary Clinton warned that it "could derail the nation's economy and give New Yorkers higher interest rates and more unemployment." Read More

In his budget message last month, Gov. Pataki called for constitutional reforms to control New York state's debt and ban non-voter-approved "back-door borrowing." But at the same time he quietly proposed a new form of back-door debt -- potentially the most significant change in the state's borrowing practices in decades. Read More

Thirty-five years ago this week, New Yorkers awoke on a cold New Year's Day to find the city's bus and subway system at a standstill. The costly, two-week transit strike, which began the morning John V. Lindsay took office as mayor, inevitably was recalled among the low points of his tenure when he died last month. Read More

The New York State Board of Regents this month celebrated the season of giving by calling on Gov. Pataki and the Legislature to giftwrap another $1.45 billion in state aid to public schools next year -- an 11 percent hike on top of this year's record $1.16 billion increase, which brought total school aid to $13.6 billion. Read More

The question posed by Lisa Key near the end of Tuesday night's presidential campaign debate amounted to a high, hard one for Al Gore and a slow, hanging curve ball right down the middle of the plate for George W. Bush. Mr. Gore twisted and ducked; Mr. Bush checked his swing and fouled it into the dirt. Read More

Both Rick Lazio and Hillary Clinton have made a special effort to paint themselves as tax cutters--but they're not equally deserving of the title. Read More

Here's a conundrum: New York metro-region voters, who stand to lose the most if Al Gore becomes president, are among those most eager for the vice president to step into the top job. Gore enjoys some of his strongest support in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Read More

AL Gore: $500 billion in tax cuts. George W. Bush: $1.3 trillion. Hillary Clinton: $496 billion. Rick Lazio: $776 billion to more than $1 trillion, depending on whom you believe and how you count. Read More

Saddled with yet another high-priced mandate from Albany, Mayor Giuliani and the City Council are rethinking their tax-cutting agenda. But curtailing tax cuts now would represent a step backward from policies that have contributed to the city's strongest private-sector employment growth in a half century. Read More