E.J. McMahon

Founding Senior Fellow

Edmund J. McMahon was the Empire Center’s founding senior fellow.

McMahon’s writing and research has focused on improving New York’s economic competitiveness and promoting greater transparency, accountability and fiscal responsibility in state and local government. He has authored or co-authored major studies on public pension reform, collective bargaining, population migration, budget trends and tax policy in New York. His influential “Blueprint for a Better Budget,” published in January 2010, featured a number of recommendations subsequently implemented under Governors David Paterson and Andrew Cuomo. McMahon also was a leading advocate of an across-the-board cap on property taxes in New York before it was enacted at Governor Cuomo’s initiative in 2011.

McMahon has published numerous articles and essays in publications including the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Barron’s, the Public Interest, the New York Post, the New York Daily News, Newsday and the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. His frequent radio and TV interviews have included appearances on CNBC, Fox News Channel and Bloomberg News, as well as on regional cable and broadcast outlets throughout New York State.

McMahon’s professional background includes nearly 30 years as an Albany-based analyst and close observer of New York State government. As chief fiscal advisor to the Assembly Republican Conference in the early 1990s, he drafted a personal income tax reform plan that would become the basis for historic tax cuts enacted under Governor George E. Pataki. Previously, as research director of the Public Policy Institute, he worked on the Institute’s counter-budget proposals and developed the template for New York’s school report cards. He also served as a deputy commissioner in the state Department of Taxation and Finance and as a vice chancellor of the State University of New York.

McMahon is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, which he joined in June 2000. In January 2005, he opened the Institute’s Albany-based Empire Center project, which became an independent nonprofit think tank in 2013. He was the Empire Center’s founding president and became research director in the fall of 2016.

Earlier in his career, he was a staff writer and columnist for the Albany Times Union and The Knickerbocker News.

McMahon is a graduate of Villanova University.

Latest Work

NYC Jobs In Jeopardy

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • July 24, 2000
  • Commentary

Saddled with yet another high-priced mandate from Albany, Mayor Giuliani and the City Council are rethinking their tax-cutting agenda. But curtailing tax cuts now would represent a step backward from policies that have contributed to the city's strongest private-sector employment growth in a half century. Read More

Al’s Middle-Class Tax Targets

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • October 11, 2000
  • Commentary

Here's a conundrum: New York metro-region voters, who stand to lose the most if Al Gore becomes president, are among those most eager for the vice president to step into the top job. Gore enjoys some of his strongest support in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Read More

Rick, Hill & Tax Cuts For NY

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • October 18, 2000
  • Commentary

Both Rick Lazio and Hillary Clinton have made a special effort to paint themselves as tax cutters--but they're not equally deserving of the title. Read More

What Bush Should Have Said About Tax Cuts

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • Wall Street Journal
  • October 19, 2000
  • Commentary

The question posed by Lisa Key near the end of Tuesday night's presidential campaign debate amounted to a high, hard one for Al Gore and a slow, hanging curve ball right down the middle of the plate for George W. Bush. Mr. Gore twisted and ducked; Mr. Bush checked his swing and fouled it into the dirt. Read More

A ‘Ladder’ to Sky-High School Taxes

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • December 26, 2000
  • Commentary

The New York State Board of Regents this month celebrated the season of giving by calling on Gov. Pataki and the Legislature to giftwrap another $1.45 billion in state aid to public schools next year -- an 11 percent hike on top of this year's record $1.16 billion increase, which brought total school aid to $13.6 billion. Read More

The Blunders of ’66

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • January 3, 2001
  • Commentary

Thirty-five years ago this week, New Yorkers awoke on a cold New Year's Day to find the city's bus and subway system at a standstill. The costly, two-week transit strike, which began the morning John V. Lindsay took office as mayor, inevitably was recalled among the low points of his tenure when he died last month. Read More

A Risky Debt ‘Reform’

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • February 11, 2001
  • Commentary

In his budget message last month, Gov. Pataki called for constitutional reforms to control New York state's debt and ban non-voter-approved "back-door borrowing." But at the same time he quietly proposed a new form of back-door debt -- potentially the most significant change in the state's borrowing practices in decades. Read More