Month: August 2019

In the late 1990s, Nassau County was roiled by a financial crisis that resulted in the takeover of the county’s finances. By 2015, the county seemed to be out off the hole, but problems remained. Writing in The City Journal, E.J. McMahon claimed that ongoing budget deficits proved that “Long Islanders failed to learn from the mistakes of the big city...Instead, Nassau’s republican machine spent the boom years building a suburban version of the profligate... urban-governance model that almost bankrupted New York in the mid-seventies...The finances of Nassau and Suffolk counties...are likely to experience severe stress in any economic downturn over the next few years. Perhaps then, at last, real reform will happen.” Read More

Ken Girardin, a policy analyst for the fiscally conservative Empire Center, derided the annual event as "Subsidy Day" and said state leaders should instead focus on policy changes to make New York more competitive, including cutting taxes, controlling public employee compensation and streaming government regulations. Read More

E.J. McMahon, the founder of the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative think tank, said Cuomo has the power to almost unilaterally control Medicaid costs without the legislature’s input. Citing recent research from the think tank, McMahon argued the Cuomo administration created the budget gap by postponing certain Medicaid payments, failing to account for the rising minimum wage, and approving rate hikes for hospitals and nursing programs. Read More

An analysis from the Empire Center for New York State Policy noted that the Federal Reserve did issue a cautionary note on its analysis. “The Fed economists’ blog ends with an appropriate cautionary note,” the Empire Center wrote. “For one thing, even using their method, it’s possible that minimum wage increase reduced the numbers of hours worked, they acknowledge. (Hard hours-worked data at the county and sectoral level are not published by the state Labor Department.) Finally, as the Fed economists point out, ‘longer-term effects, if any, remain to be seen.’ It is certainly conceivable that minimum-wage differentials may affect decisions on firm location, business investment, lease renewal, and the like over a longer time horizon.'” Read More

New York's Medicaid spending has always been high, if not the highest, among other states. In 2015, per capita spending on Medicaid was highest in New York, and 76% above the national average, according to an analysis from the Empire Center, a conservative think tank. Read More

E.J. McMahon, research director at the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank in Albany, said the budget division's assement "ignores the budgetary impact of the minimum wage." He noted that two weeks ago the division forecast a $6 billion budget gap for the 2021 state fiscal year, saying the main culprit was "the excess Medicaid spending" caused by the minimum wage increase. Read More