“It’s definitely an outmoded way to fund retirements when you look at how the private sector has moved toward defined contribution retirement plans,” Girardin said. “Every year we remain in the pension business, we’re putting taxpayers who haven’t even been born yet on the hook for paying benefits 50 or 60 years from now.” Read More
The city's annual beg-a-thon is in high gear, and Mayor Sheehan is looking for help. Read More
Pension system investments "are all in danger of veering off the road, just at different speeds," the Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon said in October. Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo wants to give another $500 million dollars, not to Rochester, but to Buffalo. He's doubling down on his "Buffalo Billion" initiative. The proposal was announced during the governor's State of the State in January. Rochester has received plenty of money from the state too. But, seemingly, not with as much fan-fare as Buffalo has. Now that the governor wants to give another half billion of your tax dollars to a city 70 miles away, we're asking him, "Why?" Read More
"These data are the clearest proof yet that the state's hostile business climate constitutes more than just high taxes," said Ken Girardin, an analyst with the Empire Center, a fiscally conservative think tank. "Start-Up NY has been hailed as a silver bullet and instead, it's just been a shiny object that's distracted Albany from having a serious conversation about what's necessary to make New York legitimately attractive to businesses." Read More
In other words, as EJ McMahon at The Empire Center pointed out this morning, these tax cuts for middle earners were already approved in last year’s budget plan. Read More
New York City has been ordered to pay the legal expenses of an Albany-based nonprofit group for withholding information about the number of undercover cops working for the police department. Read More
“What we have here is a gazillionaire’s tax,” said E.J. McMahon, director of the New York think tank Empire Center for Public Policy. “Heastie wants to see Cuomo and raise him.” Read More