The state's Medicaid spending was significantly lower than projected in the first quarter, but that's not necessarily a positive sign for state finances. Read More
Category: Blog
Some of New York City's leading progressive Democrats are mounting a campaign to pressure Governor Cuomo into backing a big new "wealth tax" on New York billionaires. Read More
Because New York was hit with the coronavirus early, before testing was widely available, its official count of infections – at just over 400,000 – vastly understates the scale of its outbreak. Read More
A new report from the state Health Department tries to deflect blame for thousands of coronavirus deaths in the state's nursing homes—but undermines its own case by withholding data and engaging in tendentious analysis. Read More
New York's economy ended the first quarter of this year in virtual free fall, the latest federal data show. Read More
The vacancy rate in New York's nursing homes has more than doubled since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, suggesting that the death toll among residents may be thousands higher than officially reported. Read More
A temporary freeze on scheduled pay hikes for state government employees (apparently) will continue through September while Governor Cuomo continues to count on aid from Washington to cope with the pandemic-induced economic and fiscal crisis. But the governor's administrative deferral of pay hikes still falls well short of what the governor can and should propose to save money and minimize layoffs. Read More
A federal appellate court has upheld a state-imposed freeze on pay increases for Nassau County employees—reaffirming the Legislature’s power to grant similar much-needed budgetary relief to every level of government in New York to help deal with the severe post-pandemic fiscal crisis. Read More
"Readers will recall that the Empire Center is the think tank that spent months trying to pry Covid data out of Mr. Cuomo’s government, which offered a series of unbelievable excuses for its refusal to disclose...five months after it sued the government, and one week after a state court ruled that the Cuomo administration had violated the law and ordered it to come clean—Team Cuomo finally started coughing up some of the records." -Wall Street Journal, February 19, 2021
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