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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
