Category: Commentary

Retirees' benefits are the fastest-growing part of overall health-coverage costs for New York state and local government. They're already nearly 40 percent of the state's employee-health budget, and they'll consume more than a third of the roughly $3.5 billion New York City will spend on health benefits this year. Read More

Healthy skepticism was warranted back in January, when Gov. Eliot Spitzer first announced he would name a special commission to recommend a cap on school property taxes. Sure, the governor's rhetoric was tough and right on the mark. And he was embracing an idea he'd rejected during his 2006 gubernatorial run - and choosing his primary opponent, Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi to chair the commission, ensuring this would at least be a high-profile effort. Read More

When Nelson Rockefeller was born 100 years ago today, New York state was America's economic powerhouse - with its best years still ahead. Read More

GOV. Paterson has pledged the state will "learn to do more with less" in closing a projected $6.4 billion gap in the 2009-10 fiscal year. Read More

LAST week's state Senate approval of Gov. Paterson's proposed cap on school property taxes seems to have induced a nervous breakdown in the powerful statewide teachers' union. Read More

The financial-market implosion and the coming transformation of the securities industry will expose the fundamental flaw in New York State’s woefully overextended public finance model. The state budget is today geared to run on an ever-expanding stream of high-octane revenues from a Wall Street that no longer exists—and the rest of New York’s economy isn’t nearly robust enough to make up the difference. Read More