If you want to have a grim sort of fun, go to the Empire Center online and take a look at the Spend-O-Meter, which keeps track of New York’s spending, according to the 2015-16 budget, in real time. The first thing you notice are the dollars spinning like pinwheels. Read More
E.J. McMahon, president of the Empire Center, joined Liz Benjamin on "Capital Tonight" to discuss the state budget and how state legislators spent New York's unprecedented $6 billion windfall. Read More
Squirreled away in the new state budget is a provision—first proposed by Governor Andrew Cuomo—that will guarantee future periodic pay raises for the governor, New York State legislators and other state government officials. But is it constitutional? Read More
There's $400 million for economic development projects, probably on Long Island, with details to come. Both the State Assembly and Senate have tens of millions to dole out to school districts and libraries, at their discretion. And at least 1,800 old earmarks for local governments and nonprofits around the state were once again given a lifeline, a total of $23 million for everything from the American Legion post in Wantagh to the Utica Zoo. Read More
The controversial nonprofit organization ACORN has been closed for almost five years, but that didn't stop the state Legislature from steering more than $24,000 its way in this year's budget. Read More
The new state budget has managed to unite the free-market Empire Center and the far-left Working Families Party. This meeting of the minds came over a classic move: Lawmakers slipped in a provision granting a fat tax break on sales the of private planes and luxury yachts. Read More
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority got railroaded in the state's newly adopted budget, advocates charged Thursday. Facing a $15 billion gap in its capital budget, the MTA received a paltry $250 million from the state's $6 billion windfall from recent legal settlements. Read More
At a campaign stop in Albany last October, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced an ambitious new plan to revolutionize New Yorkers’ access to broadband internet with $500 million in state funding. Read More