Latest

First, this economic and fiscal crisis is not just another cyclical downturn. What we have witnessed over the past year is the end of an era. 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

March isn't half over yet -- but we already have a winner!  Even with the state budget unsettled (with all that implies, bad ideas-wise), the worst idea of the month is surely a proposal by state Sen. Carl Kruger for avoiding East River bridge tolls Read More

Advocates of a continue to attempt to mislead the public about who pays how much of the current state income tax. Read More

Fitch Ratings just released its survey of big investors' views of the future of various debt markets "going forward." Of the insurance companies, pension and hedge funds, and other asset managers that responded, 12 percent said that the tax-exempt m Read More

Before Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith stalled the plan yesterday, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver had come up with a compromise idea to raise new money for the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority: charge a $2 toll for drivers to cro Read More

Last week, Gov. Paterson wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner asking for a two-pronged federal bailout of the municipal bond market. "The current financial crisis has severely hurt the ability of local governments to borrow," Paterson wr Read More

America's muni-bond market takes criticism from several fronts. Because the market's tax benefits are valuable mostly to high-net-worth individuals, its pool of potential investors is limited. Pension funds, endowments, and other investors already ex Read More