Category: Commentary

Looking ahead to the first budget of his administration, Governor Spitzer pledged earlier this month to "make hard choices and begin to fundamentally reform and restructure programs that have become needlessly expensive" and to "say ‘no' to budget requests we simply cannot afford." Read More

The state-funded portion of Spitzer's $121 billion Executive Budget (excluding federal aid) calls for a spending hike of 7.8 percent - three times the projected inflation rate for the state's 2007-08 fiscal year, which begins April 1. Read More

As if New Yorkers didn't already suspect that they're far more heavily taxed than residents of other big cities, the city Independent Budget Office yesterday issued a study proving it more conclusively than ever. Read More

While Tuesday's stock market slide was a timely reminder of New York's fiscal vulnerability to external shocks, Eliot Spitzer was already voicing concern about the state's economic prospects during his campaign for governor last fall. Read More

GOV. Spitzer and his successor as state attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, both have made some early moves to turn their rhetoric into reality when it comes to expanding the accountability and transparency of government in New York. Read More

As the $121 billion state budget was heading toward passage late last week, some observers jumped to the conclusion that Gov. Spitzer had conceded too much, too soon in his first negotiations with the Legislature. Read More

The vagaries of the calendar have extended this year's income-tax filing deadlines to midnight tomorrow, April 17. New Yorkers, especially, can use the extra time to cope with their state's increasingly complex and confusing tax code. Read More

With the stroke of a pen, Gov. Spitzer has cleared the way for 60,000 home-based day-care providers to join New York's growing quasi-public-sector labor cartel. And in the process, on the heels of a first-year budget that increases spending at more than three times the inflation rate, he has further undermined his ability to control the cost of government in the Empire State. Read More