LAST week, Gov. Paterson activated New York’s “health-emergency preparedness plan,” as a prudent precautionary measure to deal with a potential swine-flu epidemic. Read More
Tag: Taxes and Spending
Say this much for the "mobility tax": Unable or unwilling to find more cash in operational savings, capital cuts, or the farebox, the Ravitch Commission apparently tried to find the least-awful way to raise another $1.5 billion for the MTA. Read More
New York’s 80-year-old Executive Budget law, rooted in Article VII of the state Constitution, has stood the test of time in many respects. But some glaring holes in the law have become more and more evident over the past couple of decades. As a result, the severity of New York State’s latest fiscal crisis has been compounded by a lack of budgetary discipline, transparency and accountability. Read More
New York State is broke. Like a runaway train, New York's budget is in danger of running completely off the rails. It needs to be brought under control—before it's too late. Read More
When Gov. Paterson delivers his annual message to the Legislature tomor row, “the state of the state” will be painfully obvious. Read More
School districts on Long Island and across New York State dodged a bullet last month when the legislature rejected Gov. David A. Paterson’s call for a midyear cut in K-12 education aid. But their luck is about to run out. Read More
Gov. Paterson’s second Executive Budget is not nearly as tough as his rhetoric (or the headlines) would imply. But in dollars and cents terms alone, it is relatively restrained and almost fiscally conservative -- by Albany’s low standards, that is. Read More
Advocates of the misnamed “millionaire’s tax” enacted in New York state last year claimed that it would restore “fairness” to a tax code that favored the rich. Read More