Some thoughts on Governor Paterson's today that he expects his forthcoming 2010-11 Executive Budget to result in a 2011-12 "surplus" of $1 billion that he will propose using for "property tax relief" in the form of a new "circuit-breaker" income tax Read More
New York local governments, including New York City, share the cost of social services and Medicaid, which elsewhere are borne mainly at the state level. Nonetheless, New York's state government spends considerably more than the national average, a Read More
Are New York's public authorities fixed? Little more than a week ago, Gov. Paterson signed a bill to ." But State Senator Bill Perkins of Harlem thinks that the convolutions New York's Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) put itself through t Read More
The health care bill now moving through Congress could heap significant added costs on New York State. But the Heritage Foundation is offering on how New York could turn the tables on the feds and save at least $47 billion on Medicaid over a six-y Read More
Buried in is an incredible set of special concessions to unionized school teachers in New York. None of these changes were contained in Governor Paterson's original "pension reform" proposal, . The worst of the giveaways to teachers in the final Read More
Fresh from a key court victory, Albany's Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), via its subsidiary, the Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corporation (BALDC), yesterday approved the issuance of up to $800 million in bonds for the construction o Read More
Governor Paterson today that New York State faces "an unprecedented financial emergency," and asked the Legislature to choose between passing his deficit-reduction plan or granting him a new "executive option" to cut the budget unilaterally. But t Read More
Josh Barro of Manhattan Institute has a strong at RealClearMarkets digging more deeply into the Rockefeller Institute's on quarterly state tax collections. Key take-away: "states without income taxes are generally showing admirable (and unsurpris Read More