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

Pigs-in-a-Blanket Veto

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • The New York Times
  • April 23, 2006
  • Commentary

State legislators will return to the Capitol this week to confront the more than 200 budget vetoes handed down by Gov. George Pataki before their Passover-Easter recess. Read More

Spending Isn’t Answer For All Problems

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • Syracuse Post-Standard
  • May 23, 2006
  • Commentary

New York state's 2006-07 budget features a record $1.3 billion increase in support for K-12 public education. State school aid is up 8 percent from the previous year, boosting the total to an all-time high of $17.6 billion. Read More

Defusing New York’s Pension Bomb

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • June 7, 2006
  • Reports

This study shows how greater fairness for New York taxpayers and competitive retirement benefits for government employees can be achieved by switching from the current defined benefit (DB) pension plan to the savings-based defined contribution (DC) model used by the vast majority of private companies. Read More

New York’s Pension Peril

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • June 8, 2006
  • Commentary

Mayor Bloomberg has opened negotiations with the city's largest union by asking for pension concessions like those rejected by transit workers before their walkout in December. Read More

Mandated Benefits a Costly Idea

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • Times Union
  • June 18, 2006
  • Commentary

As the state's 2006 legislative session winds down, it appears Senate lawmakers won't vote on a proposed bill that would require large companies to provide comprehensive health care benefits to their workers. Read More

Tax Breaks Won’t Aid New York’s Economy

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • Syracuse Post-Standard
  • June 27, 2006
  • Commentary

Some of the more ballyhooed changes are so small they may escape a typical taxpayer's notice. For example, if your family owns two cars and drives a lot, the repeal of sales taxes on gasoline purchases over $2 per gallon may save you a whopping $30 over the course of a year. Read More

Drunken Sailors

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • July 5, 2006
  • Commentary

In a budget " cleanup bill" they adopted before adjourning two weeks ago, state legislators effectively plunked about $1 billion worth of rum soaked cherries on what was already a massive New York style cheesecake of fiscal excess. Read More