In his budget message last month, Gov. Pataki called for constitutional reforms to control New York state's debt and ban non-voter-approved "back-door borrowing." But at the same time he quietly proposed a new form of back-door debt -- potentially the most significant change in the state's borrowing practices in decades. Read More
The two New Yorks - city and state - were the nation's twin towers of public indebtedness long before the tragic events of Sept. 11 placed extraordinary new strains on their budgets. Read More
Under cover of the summer doldrums, Mayor Bloomberg's budget staff is feverishly putting the finishing touches on one of the biggest bonding boondoggles in New York State's history. Read More
New York City has finally wriggled off the hook for what's left of that ‘70s debt. Under last week's ruling by the state's highest court, $2 billion the city was obligated to pay the Municipal Assistance Corp. (MAC) over the next four years will be transformed into roughly $5 billion in state payments to yet another financing entity over the next 30 years. Read More
And speaking of debt: in its latest on the newly adopted New York City budget, the state Financial Control Board says the city's unfunded liability for "other post-employment benefits" (OPEB) could approach $100 billion in three years. As shown in th Read More
Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez has about the $237 million in tax-exempt debt behind the overly luxurious parking "system" near Yankee Stadium in the Bronx: If [the garage defaults], the Bloomberg administration faces th Read More
Bloomberg (the news, not the mayor) reports that the state of Illinois must pay 40 percent more than it did two months ago to borrow money in the bond markets (relative to supposedly risk-free Treasury bonds). Illinois' new 25-year, $300 million... Read More
The House has passed the White House's request for an extension of the Build America Bond program 'till 2012, and the Senate is getting there. Just what state, local, and the federal government need: more "cheap" debt, thanks to an implicit federal... Read More