Mayor Bloomberg's planned property-tax rebate for New York City homeowners won't provide the same economic boost as a permanent rate cut for all property taxpayers. But it sweeps $250 million off the budgetary table and away from the grasping hands of the municipal labor unions and City Council. Read More
Even as the economic outlook brightens, New York City's long-term budget picture is deteriorating. And, aside from pointing fingers at Albany, Mayor Bloomberg seems to have few new ideas for dealing with the problem. Read More
Welfare reform was one of the big successes of the Giuliani years. Unfortunately, the city's welfare rolls are no longer steadily falling. What's more, other forms of public assistance have been steadily rising. Read More
The largest privately run ferry service be tween New Jersey and Manhattan is seeking a financial bailout for at least some of its operations from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which already controls most of the bridge, tunnel and rail network that ferry riders are paying a premium to avoid. Read More
When independent "dollar van" operators began to proliferate in Queens and Brooklyn in the wake of the 1980 transit strike, local politicians moved quickly to protect New York's inefficient public (and union) transit monopoly. Read More
Listening to Michael Bloomberg present the fourth budget of his mayoralty yesterday was like listening to a man having an argument with himself. The former CEO in the mayor's office made a strong case for doing more - much more - to downsize the city's exceedingly vast array of costly public services. Read More
With the ashes of September 11 still smoldering, Michael Bloomberg won his first New York mayoral term largely because city voters assumed that he would stick with Rudolph Giuliani’s most successful policies. Read More
When George E. Pataki first became governor in 1994, he made much of his humble origins on a farm in a small Hudson River community. And based on the vote totals, a large majority of New York City residents apparently dismissed him as a country bumpkin—or, at best, a suburban arriviste. Read More