The newly adopted state budget for 2006-07 includes a $200 million lump-sum appropriation for "services and expenses, grants in aid, or for contracts with certain not-for-profit agencies, universities, colleges, school districts, corporation Read More
The Manhattan Institute's Empire Center for Public Policy has obtained complete lists of legislative and gubernatorial pork-barrel spending--also known as "member items"--for each of the past three years. The documents amount to 1,154 pages, listing 22,980 individual grants totaling just over $479 million. Read More
One of the chief architects of the landmark federal welfare reform law of 1996 will be among the speakers at an upcoming Empire Center policy forum exploring the law's impact nationally and in New York. Read More
Medicaid spending on the elderly rose five times faster in New York than in other states during the most recent five-year period for which data are available, according to a report issued by the Empire Center. Read More
New York’s state legislators have a long history of lavish pork-barrel spending. Much of this spending comes in the form of appropriations known as “member items” — operating grants to local community groups, labor unions and advocacy organizations. But while individual senators and Assembly members are willing to selectively publicize the nature and purpose of their own pet projects, the Legislature as a whole has tried to keep much of the budgeting process for the member items under wraps. Read More
Video from a conference hosted by E.J. McMahon Read More
GOV. Spitzer and his successor as state attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, both have made some early moves to turn their rhetoric into reality when it comes to expanding the accountability and transparency of government in New York. Read More
To promote greater public scrutiny of tax-funded expenditures, the Empire Center for Public Policy has assembled a list of pork-barrel "member items" found in the 2007-08 budget bills passed by the Legislature. Read More