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
On the surface, New York doesn't look too bad in Rockefeller Institute's on tax trends in the 50 states. Albany's tax receipts in the third quarter declined by 8.9 percent, compared to a national average of 10.7 percent, the report says. New York Read More
"If there is no action taken by the state [of New York] to close the [budget] gap, or if action is taken but is largely-one-time in nature (therefore increasing the structural imbalance in the outyears), and revenue collections in January are close t Read More
Just how ephemeral is Wall Street's "recovery"? State comptroller Thomas DiNapoli notes in today's that securities firms' profits are reaching record highs, because "the sharp decline in interest expenses (to $5 billion in the second quarter of 2 Read More
"Wall Street Recovering Faster Than Anticipated" is the headline on today's press release from state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli's office, heralding a that points to potential record-breaking profitability and lower-than-expected employment losses a Read More