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
Mayor Bloomberg's 2006 Executive Budget is technically balanced but points to huge out-year shortfalls, despite the economic recovery and surging tax revenues. E.J. McMahon, the Empire Center's director, discusses the mayor's seemingly split perso Read More
School districts across New York want to increase their spending at more than twice the rate of inflation, according to the Public Policy Institute's Annual . And despite a record aid increase of nearly $900 million in the new state budget, proposed Read More
If there's one thing on which virtually everyone in Albany agrees, it's the need to expand the availability of health insurance to the roughly 3 million New York state residents who lack it. Read More
Despite a noticeable lack of debate or public hearings on the subject, the New York State Legislature is moving towards adoption of a significant change in investment guidelines for the $120 billion Common Retirement Fund, according to a new Read More
Amid the hundreds of arcane laws enacted every year in Albany, how's a taxpayer to know which ones actually represent a huge favor to a powerful special interest group - with huge cost implications for the rest of us? Read More
Governor George Pataki and Comptroller Alan Hevesi have agreed to make marginal changes in a proposed refinancing and restructuring of $2.9 billion in bonds to finance part of the state's five-year transportation capital plan. As we noted almost t Read More
Property taxes are unpopular with homeowners from coast to coast - and nowhere more so than in NewYork state, which is home to some of the highest property taxes in the nation. Relative to property values and incomes, the property tax burden might be heaviest of all in Central New York and other Upstate regions. Read More