Category: Reports

Local government is a labor-intensive business, and employee compensation is the single biggest element of most municipal budgets. The 2012-13 edition of What They Make, the Empire Center's annual report on public payrolls, allows New York taxpayers to compare this key element of local government costs around the state... Read More

Tax cuts emerged as a major issue early in the 2000 Presidential campaign, with George W. Bush and Al Gore each emphasizing the savings he would deliver to middle-class taxpayers. Tax policy is also a sharp point of contention in New York’s Senate race, where Rick Lazio and Hillary Clinton have sparred over whether large scale tax relief is either desirable or affordable. Read More

The new federal tax law is good news for New York, which bears a disproportionately heavy share of the federal tax burden. But while it rests on a solid foundation of broad-based tax relief very similar to what President George W. Bush proposed, the tax cut bill enacted by Congress left a tangle of loose ends. Read More

In the last five years, New York City’s economy has boomed and private sector employment has hit record levels. What, if anything, did lower taxes have to do with these achievements? And what are the implications for future tax policy? Read More

In the weeks leading up to the original September 11th primary date, the mayoral candidates would occasionally acknowledge that their plans might have to change if New York City encountered a full-blown recession. Read More

In the wake of the attack on the World Trade Center, New York City faces a budget gap of at least $3.6 billion. As a result, Michael Bloomberg will confront the city’s most serious financial crisis in a decade. Read More

At a time when New York desperately needs to find ways of delivering public services more efficiently, its transit bus operations could prove to be a significant source of recurring savings for the future. The key to unlocking these savings is competition—an essential spur to improved performance and efficiency that’s been missing from transit in New York for most of the past 50 years. Read More

This report analyzes New York State government’s fiscal history over the last three and a half decades, with a particular focus on Governor Pataki’s accomplishments. It finds that fiscal crises are always preceded by periods of higher-than-normal spending, and that reducing spending is the only successful way to solve a crisis. Tax increases, such as those passed in the early 1970s and 1990s, exacerbate crises by reducing economic activity. Read More