“There should be a way to make this happen without giving away the store,” said E.J. McMahon, research director of the Empire Center for Public Policy, an Albany think tank that advocates for smart-government and free-market policies. Read More
Tag: Economic Development
“We’re passed the point of needing to increase the scrutiny on the state’s economic development programs,” said Ken Girardin, communications and marketing manager with the Albany-based Empire Center of Public Policy. “Lawmakers should be pulling the plug on them. They’re a distraction from the policies that hinder economic growth, especially upstate. Every time the state launches another economic development program, they’re basically shaking a jingly set of car keys to distract people from the underlying policies that they are unwilling to fix.” Read More
ALBANY--"This scheme is unusual in it's brazenness, it Read More
Earlier this month, Gov. Cuomo paid a visit to the centerpiece of his upstate economic development strategy: a massive, still unfinished “gigafactory” taxpayers spent $750 million to build and equip for SolarCity, a money-losing company with a foggy future. “This is the economy of tomorrow,” the governor gushed, according to a Buffalo News account. “It’s such a metaphor — a symbol of everything we’re doing.” Indeed. But rather than symbolizing a shiny high-tech future, the solar-panel factory could become a monument to what US Attorney Preet Bharara described as “pervasive corruption and fraud” allegedly infecting Cuomo’s signature economic development programs. Read More
"It’s time to more closely scrutinize the entire overblown premise of New York State’s economic development programs." Read More
"Start-Up New York is proof positive that taxes aren't the only thing that's hindering business in the state of New York. It's clearly something bigger," Empire Center Policy Analyst Ken Girardin. Read More
START-UP NY, New York’s signature economic development program, made headlines for creating just 408 jobs in its first two years of operations. However, bigger disappointments may lie ahead. Read More
E.J. McMahon, president of the fiscally conservative Empire Center for Public Policy, said music producers and game developers are getting a "very sweet deal" by piggybacking on the film industry's lobbying. Much of the subsidized business was already here, he said. Read More