On Election Day, New York voters will be asked to let the state borrow up to $2 billion to help public schools buy computer hardware they don’t urgently need and create space for pre-kindergarten programs that most districts outside New York City can’t afford. Read More
Move over, Jimmy Fallon. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced last week that New York State will steer $16 million in subsidies to CBS to keep the "Late Show" in Manhattan under its next host, Stephen Colbert. Read More
No matter how much the left wants to expand government, no matter how much the right wants to cut taxes, both ought to observe a fundamental rule of government spending: Never use one-shot revenues to fund recurring operating expenses. Read More
New York will reap a state budget windfall of at least $3.3 billion in fines paid by the big French bank BNP Paribas after it pleaded guilty recently to violating sanctions against transactions in Cuba, Sudan and Iran. So, how should the money be spent? Read More
Public-sector labor unions dodged a bullet Monday when the US Supreme Court refrained from overturning laws that force government employees in many states to pay fees to unions they don’t want to join. Read More
Skyrocketing public-pension obligations have generated concern across the country, especially in the wake of high-profile bankruptcies of Detroit and Stockton, Calif. In New York, an even larger burden looms in the form of lifetime health-insurance coverage promised to state and local government employees. Yet at least one house of the Legislature is considering a bill that would effectively prevent any effort to reduce this unaffordable debt. Read More
Mayor Bill de Blasio's 9-year contract agreement with the United Federation of Teachers, including a pair of 4 percent base-salary increases retroactive to the fall of 2008, will cost so much that he wants to defer some of the expense all the way out to the end of the decade. Read More
From New York’s standpoint, the best that can be said of last week’s federal tax hike is that it could’ve been worse. Taxes on the wealthy went up, but “wealthy” was defined as an adjusted gross income starting around $500,000 for married couples, instead of at the $250,000 level favored by President Obama. At least 150,000 New York state households, including small business owners, were thus let off the rate-hike hook — for now, at least. Read More