New York's newly enacted budget calls for the biggest state spending increase in 33 years without even including legislative additions blocked on constitutional grounds by Governor George Pataki. Read More
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State legislators will return to the Capitol this week to confront the more than 200 budget vetoes handed down by Gov. George Pataki before their Passover-Easter recess. Read More
Based on recent history, Albany's legislative leaders had reason to assume Gov. Pataki wouldn't put up much of a fight when they added billions of dollars to his already generous budget plan for the 2006-07 fiscal year. Read More
A healthy debate is now raging in Washington, D.C., over the use of congressional "earmarks" to spend pork barrel money out of federal budget appropriations. Conservatives and liberals alike agree that the practice is wasteful and should be eliminated or severely curtailed. Read More
The Manhattan Institute's Empire Center for Public Policy has obtained complete lists of legislative and gubernatorial pork-barrel spending--also known as "member items"--for each of the past three years. The documents amount to 1,154 pages, listing 22,980 individual grants totaling just over $479 million. Read More
The growing cost of New York's Medicaid program is once again looming as a key issue in a potential budget veto showdown between Governor Pataki and the Legislature. To no one's surprise, the budget adopted by the Senate and Assembly last wee Read More
The newly adopted state budget for 2006-07 includes a $200 million lump-sum appropriation for "services and expenses, grants in aid, or for contracts with certain not-for-profit agencies, universities, colleges, school districts, corporation Read More
Last week's appeals-court ruling in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) case leaves a murky picture even murkier. This is what happens when courts meddle where they don't belong. Read More