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

Empire State Exodus

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • October 27, 2009
  • Reports

The Empire State is being drained of an invaluable resource—people. From 2000 to 2008, in both absolute and relative terms, New York experienced the nation’s largest loss of residents to other states—a net domestic migration outflow of over 1.5 million, or 8 percent of its population at the start of the decade. Read More

Freeze Wages Now

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • November 2, 2009
  • Commentary

LAST week, Gov. Paterson activated New York’s “health-emergency preparedness plan,” as a prudent precautionary measure to deal with a potential swine-flu epidemic. Read More

A Just Plain Terrible Tax Proposal

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • December 5, 2008
  • Commentary

Say this much for the "mobility tax": Unable or unwilling to find more cash in operational savings, capital cuts, or the farebox, the Ravitch Commission apparently tried to find the least-awful way to raise another $1.5 billion for the MTA. Read More

Testimony: Budget Reform

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • December 17, 2009
  • Testimony

New York’s 80-year-old Executive Budget law, rooted in Article VII of the state Constitution, has stood the test of time in many respects. But some glaring holes in the law have become more and more evident over the past couple of decades. As a result, the severity of New York State’s latest fiscal crisis has been compounded by a lack of budgetary discipline, transparency and accountability. Read More

Blueprint for a Better Budget

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • January 4, 2010
  • Reports

New York State is broke. Like a runaway train, New York's budget is in danger of running completely off the rails. It needs to be brought under control—before it's too late. Read More

Fixing What’s Broke

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • January 5, 2010
  • Commentary

When Gov. Paterson delivers his annual message to the Legislature tomor row, “the state of the state” will be painfully obvious. Read More

Don’t Waste School Aid Crisis

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • Newsday
  • January 17, 2010
  • Commentary

School districts on Long Island and across New York State dodged a bullet last month when the legislature rejected Gov. David A. Paterson’s call for a midyear cut in K-12 education aid. But their luck is about to run out. Read More

Grading the Gov’s Budget

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • January 23, 2010
  • Commentary

Gov. Paterson’s second Executive Budget is not nearly as tough as his rhetoric (or the headlines) would imply. But in dollars and cents terms alone, it is relatively restrained and almost fiscally conservative -- by Albany’s low standards, that is. Read More