With school property taxes continuing to rise across New York State, Albany's leading Republicans are pushing for a major expansion of the STAR (School Tax Relief) program in the next state budget. But more STAR spending will do nothing to reduce New York's oppressive state and local tax burden. Instead, it will promote faster growth in school spending and property tax levies unless it is tied to a firm cap on school district budgets or taxes. Read More
New York's newly enacted budget calls for the biggest state spending increase in 33 years without even including legislative additions blocked on constitutional grounds by Governor George Pataki. Read More
Seemingly oblivious to the already high and rising cost of taxpayer-funded public pensions in New York, state lawmakers this year passed at least 36 measures that would expand pension benefits for groups of public workers. Read More
New York City's current budget is an object lesson in why too much money is just as serious a problem as too little. New York ended the last fiscal year with $3.8 billion more than it expected to spend. . . but while taxpayers historically have borne tax-rate hikes to fund the city's predictable cyclical deficits, they will not see tax cuts due to the current record surplus, unless Mayor Bloomberg takes advantage of this temporary boom time. . . Read More
News coverage of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's first State of the State message invariably highlighted his proposal for what has been widely billed as a $6 billion property tax reduction. . . Read More
Governor Spitzer's first Executive Budget would raise state spending by up to three times the projected rate of inflation in the fiscal year that begins April 1. Read More
Here's some more evidence of how Gov. Cuomo's 29 percent personal income-tax hike for top earners is a risky proposition for New York City. In response to a request from City Councilman James Oddo, the city's Independent Budget Office (IBO) . T Read More
, the Empire Center's senior fellow and frequent blogger on this site, discussed state tax issues Wednesday on YNN's "Capital Tonight" program with Liz Benjamin. Also appearing was Michael Kink, a leading advocate of higher taxes. . Read More