Nearly a full month after the Legislature’s adoption of the 2009-10 state budget, Governor David Paterson’s Division of the Budget (DOB) today issued its since January. The bottom line: New York State’s long-term financial outlook has signif Read More
How big is the spending increase in the newly adopted New York State budget? How does it compare to previous spending trends? One of the many glaring shortcomings of the state budget process is that it is not possible to answer such questions w Read More
[See update at end of item.] Buried in one of the now pending in Albany is what looks like a $1 billion federal stimulus aid slush fund, which could be "suballocated" by the governor to "to any state department, agency or public authorit Read More
A friend in Washington, D.C., passes along . Sneak preview: you can't fit it in a suitcase. Read More
Governor Paterson and state legislative leaders announced today that they've agreed to use most of New York's unfettered federal stimulus money to restore spending to the governor's budget and to avoid any further spending cuts. The result will be Read More
Today's on the lessons that America can draw from Japan's experience in investing in public works as economic stimulus made some good points. However, some of the numbers the article cites -- on which kind of public investments deliver the great Read More
Mayor Bloomberg announced his budget this afternoon for the fiscal year that starts in July. The mayor expects that a combination of federal stimulus, state funds, tax hikes, spending cuts, and labor givebacks will close a $4 billion budget gap tha Read More
The House passed the $819 billion stimulus last night. The final version contains some amendments that affect the (tiny) infrastructure-investment part of the bill. Two amendments are good, though not good enough to outweigh the fact that only fiv Read More