Nicole Gelinas — Manhattan Institute senior fellow, City Journal contributing editor and frequent blogger here — wrote a tough column in the New York Post yesterday, criticizing Governor Cuomo’s nomination of former Governor David Paterson for appointment to an open seat on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) board. The choice, Nicole said, was tantamount to “business-as-usual New York" ... Read More
SNL Financial has out analyzing Wall Street firms' latest results, which trickled in last week. One verdict to take away (although the analysts do not directly draw this conclusion): Wall Street could be smaller and more volatile. That's not Read More
Wendy Long, a lawyer who is trying to oust fellow lawyer Kirsten Gillibrand from the Senate, has with a compelling headline: "Financial Regulation is Hurting New York." True enough. But the 70 percent of the details that Long gets wrong eclipse Read More
This week, school districts across New York State have been firming up their 2012-13 budget proposals -- the first to be affected by the state's new property tax cap. Read More
While New York State’s new property tax cap has a starting point of 2 percent (or the prior year’s average inflation rate, whichever is less), it will vary from school district to school district based on a series of exclusions for capital expenditures, increases in pension costs, and physical additions to the district tax base... Read More
Low-income working families in New York State receive a significant annual wage supplement through the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which is available to eligible filers of federal, state and New York City income tax returns. Read More
With a pen stroke last week, Gov. Cuomo issued an executive order establishing a New York Health Benefit Exchange to comply with the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare. Read More
New York State, its local governments and its public authorities have promised their employees well over $200 billion in future retiree health benefits that no money is set aside to pay for, as we documented in our “Iceberg Ahead” report in late 2010. This unfunded liability translates into an enormous and growing debt that current and past generations of taxpayers have pushed onto future generations. Read More