GOV. Paterson and state legis lative leaders announced yesterday that they've agreed to use most of New York's unfettered federal stimulus money to restore spending to the governor's budget and to avoid any further spending cuts. Read More
Category: Commentary
The financial meltdown will have enormous consequences for taxpayers across the country -- but nowhere more so than in New York. That's because the Empire State has become excessively dependent on tax revenues generated by a Wall Street that no longer exists. Read More
New York's sinking economy still hasn't hit bottom. The state bud get gap continues to grow as tax revenues collapse into a black hole the size of Wall Street Read More
Gov. Paterson came into office with a different attitude. David Paterson took office as governor of New York on March 17, 2008 -- the day Bear Stearns collapsed. He spent the following nine months warning of worse things to come. Read More
Barely three months after the state Legislature approved a $2.3 billion package of tax and fee hikes to bail out the financially troubled Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), members of the MTA's largest union have been awarded a pay increase that will break the authority's tenuously balanced budget. Read More
President Obama is expected to unveil his national health-insurance plan in just a couple of months. But when it comes to expanding government-subsidized coverage, broke and recession-battered New York state has already gotten a jump on him. Read More
Gov. Paterson seems to have a bad case of amnesia on the issue that once identified him most strongly with New York taxpayers’ interests. Just less than a year ago, Paterson endorsed a blue-ribbon commission’s recommendation for a broad and comprehensive cap on the growth of local school-tax levies -- the single largest factor in sky-high property taxes outside New York City. Read More
New York state’s pension system lost 26 percent on its investments and shrunk by a net $45 billion in fiscal 2008-09, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli disclosed last week. Read More