State funds spending would rise at twice the inflation rate under Governor Pataki's proposed 2005-06 Executive Budget. And despite much-ballyhooed "cuts," state-funded Medicaid costs next year would increase nearly 13 percent. Read More
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Arnold Schwarzenegger just proposed it for California. Michigan has had it since 1997. Florida has had an optional version since 2000. It's time for New York to join the revolution and adopt the same kind of 401(k) retirement plan that is almost universal in the private sector for its future civil servants. Read More
The fundamental challenge facing New York as Gov. Pataki gave his 11th State of the State Address yesterday was essentially the same one he confronted when he first took office a decade ago. Read More
It is certainly a memorable image: New York City mayor Abe Beame standing before the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and leaving a plaintive, one-word note—“HELP.” Read More
Two decades of abysmal failure is enough to embarrass even the New York State Legislature. And so, earlier this year, Senate and Assembly leaders agreed on a set of measures - a proposed constitutional amendment and an enabling statute - supposedly designed to guarantee an on-time budget every year. Read More
Good morning, Senator Leibell, and thank you for this opportunity to testify today. My name is Edmund J. McMahon, and I am senior fellow for tax and budgetary studies at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Read More
The saga of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) court challenge to New York state school-financing formula continues to unfold in depressingly predictable fashion. Read More
When independent "dollar van" operators began to proliferate in Queens and Brooklyn in the wake of the 1980 transit strike, local politicians moved quickly to protect New York's inefficient public (and union) transit monopoly. Read More