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

Tax-hike Fantasies

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • October 8, 2012
  • Commentary

So it’s unanimous: All five of the leading prospective Democratic candidates for mayor are now on record in support of raising New York City’s top income tax rate. Read More

What They Make, 2011-12

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • October 16, 2012
  • Reports

Local government is a labor-intensive business, and employee compensation is the single biggest element of most municipal budgets. The 2011-12 edition of What They Make, the Empire Center’s annual report on public payrolls, allows New York taxpayers to compare this key element of local government costs around the state. Read More

Andrew’s Next Test

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • October 29, 2012
  • Commentary

By capping property taxes, Gov. Cuomo has tapped the brakes on local government and school spending outside New York City. He’s also taken steps to limit the growth in the local share of Medicaid over the next few years, and to curb public pension expenses further down the road. Read More

The Rebuilding Bill

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • New York Post
  • November 2, 2012
  • Commentary

Sooner or later, New York will recover from the physical effects of this week’s super-storm, just as it did from the cataclysm of 9/11. Read More

The “Tax Reform” That Wasn’t

  • by E.J. McMahon
  • Albany Government Law Review
  • November 26, 2012
  • Commentary

One year ago, as Andrew Cuomo was about to wrap up his first year in the New York governor's office, the governor and state legislative leaders agreed on a series of personal income tax provisions they described in a joint news release as "fair tax reform that achieves the first major restructuring of the tax code in decades." Read More