The last four years have seen a remarkable turnabout in tax policy of New York City. Considerable progress was made in reducing tax rates and the overall tax burden under former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, from 1994 through 2001. But since 2002, the city under Mayor Bloomberg has raised taxes by up to $3 billion, two-thirds of which consisted of a record property tax hike. Read More
Fresh from the voters' resounding rejection of Prop One - the so-called "budget reform" that really amounted to a prescription for runaway spending - some legislative leaders are already pledging they will revisit elements of the same dubious package. Read More
One of the more striking aspects of this year's mayoral campaign has been the lack of any substantial debate on New York City's tax policy. To be sure, Fernando Ferrer has done his share of carping about Michael Bloomberg's tax hikes. Read More
As more of the facts emerge about Proposal One on the Nov. 8 statewide ballot, New Yorkers are discovering that this attempt by Albany insiders to protect lawmakers' paychecks and rewrite the state constitution is hardly the "reform" its supporters have made it out to be. Read More
On October 4, Governor Paterson signed S.7451/A.10764, a bill that allows home-based child care providers to unionize -- adding more than 65,000 child care providers to the already powerful Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). Paterson's signature codifies... Read More
After failing to adopt a budget on time for 20 of the last 21 years, New York State legislative leaders are seeking voter approval of a constitutional amendment that they insist on characterizing as “budget reform.” Budget de-form would be more like it. Read More
Video from a conference hosted by E.J. McMahon Read More
Debate on New York Ballot Proposal One, which would amend the state Constitution to eliminate the existing requirement for state legislators to act on the governor's annual budget Executive Budget before initiating their own appropriation bills. It would provide for an automatic contingency budget, subject to legislative amendment, whenever a new budget is not enacted before the start of a fiscal year. Read More