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

Same Man, Same Problem

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • January 6, 2005
  • Commentary

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

Start The Revolution

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Daily News
  • January 9, 2005
  • Commentary

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

Time to End Misuse of Authorities

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • Syracuse Post-Standard
  • February 8, 2005
  • Commentary

During the recent uproar over the Thruway Authority's questionable handling of a proposed Erie Canal land development deal, far too little attention was paid to the more fundamental question of why the Thruway Authority had anything to do with the canal in the first place. Read More

NY’s Prisons Emptying Out

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • February 8, 2005
  • Commentary

Reinforcing New York City's improved policing strategies in the 1990s were tougher sentencing laws and a significant expansion of the city and state correctional systems. Would-be criminals came to realize that they were not only more likely to get caught, but more likely to end up serving hard time. Read More

Pension Plan Needs Adjusting

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • Syracuse Post-Standard
  • February 22, 2005
  • Commentary

Adding to the pressure created by rising Medicaid and other costs, local governments and school districts all over New York are being hammered by massive increases in pension costs for public employees. Read More

Like There’s No Tomorrow

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Sun
  • March 8, 2005
  • Commentary

Approaching what could turn out to be yet another stalemate with the Legislature, Governor Pataki says the last four years have been "the worst ... since the Great Depression" for New York State's finances. Read More

NY’s Road to Ruin

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • March 16, 2005
  • Commentary

Once the Legislature adopted a "temporary" personal-income-tax increase in 2003, it was only a matter of time before someone in Albany moved to make the tax hike permanent. Read More