Category: Blog

The September cash report from the state comptroller's office—an important indicator of New York's fiscal health at the halfway mark of the fiscal year—highlights growing budgetary worries for Governor Cuomo and (ultimately) the Legislature. The report showed that total state tax receipts through September 30 had come in $387 million below the level projected for that period in the First Quarterly Update issued in July—which itself reflected a $1.6 billion downward adjustment from the cash flow projection in the Executive Budget presented by Cuomo in January. Read More

Vice President Pence visited western New York to tout a federal tax reform plan that could still end up saving less for Buffalo area taxpayers than their counterparts elsewhere in the country. Read More

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case with potentially major implications for New York’s government employee unions—and, ultimately, taxpayers. Read More

The tax reform “framework” issued Wednesday by President Trump and congressional Republican leaders told us little we didn’t already know about their shared tax policy goals—while continuing to leave many key questions unanswered. Read More

All 12 of New York State's metropolitan statistical areas had economic growth rates below the national average in 2016, according to newly released federal data. Read More

The Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill heading to a possible vote next week would appear to be more costly for New York State in the long term than previous GOP repeal-and-replace plans. Read More

New York's loss of residents to other states is a long-established and troubling trend. But the impact of out-migration on the Empire State's economy, and on personal income in particular, is another, more complicated story. Unfortunately, the annual release of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data on interstate taxpayer migration continues to inspire some wrongheaded conclusions on this score. Read More

A historic decline in the uninsured population continued in 2016, both nationwide and in New York, albeit at a slower rate that signals a plateauing trend, according to data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau. Read More