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

Ready for Change: A Statewide New York Voter Survey

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • January 11, 2006
  • Reports

Looking ahead to a watershed election year, most New York voters are dissatisfied with the performance of their state government, according to the Empire Center’s statewide voter survey. Large majorities also believe that state leaders are more responsive to special interests, or to their own personal interests, than to the voters’ interests. Read More

Proposed Cigarette Tax Benefits Butt-leggers

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • Syracuse Post-Standard
  • February 7, 2006
  • Commentary

The good economic news in Gov. Pataki's proposed budget is a fresh round of $2.5 billion in annual state tax cuts that would provide a strong shot in the arm to business investment throughout New York (assuming the cuts are phased in on schedule after Pataki leaves office). Read More

Welfare Reform Requires Adjusting

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • Syracuse Post-Standard
  • March 15, 2006
  • Commentary

With its emphasis on reducing dependency and putting people to work, the historic federal welfare reform of 1996 produced spectacular results in New York and across the country. In the past decade, welfare caseloads across the Empire State have dropped 60 percent, and the child poverty rate in the state has decreased 20 percent. Read More

Confused Courts

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • March 27, 2006
  • Commentary

Last week's appeals-court ruling in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) case leaves a murky picture even murkier. This is what happens when courts meddle where they don't belong. Read More

Legislators Should Tell Where Pork Money Goes

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • Syracuse Post-Standard
  • April 18, 2006
  • Commentary

A healthy debate is now raging in Washington, D.C., over the use of congressional "earmarks" to spend pork barrel money out of federal budget appropriations. Conservatives and liberals alike agree that the practice is wasteful and should be eliminated or severely curtailed. Read More

Lame Duck Quacking

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • April 19, 2006
  • Commentary

Based on recent history, Albany's legislative leaders had reason to assume Gov. Pataki wouldn't put up much of a fight when they added billions of dollars to his already generous budget plan for the 2006-07 fiscal year. Read More