In his State of the State message in January, Gov. Paterson announced that Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch would “take the lead in [developing] a four-year plan for fiscal recovery.” Read More
Tag: Taxes and Spending
Like a drunk tempted to go on one more binge at a stressful moment, New York state may soon reach for the debt bottle in the face of mounting deficits. If it does, taxpayers will feel the hangover for a generation. Read More
New York State government payrolls shrunk by 1,856 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees, or less than one percent, during a two-year period ending in January 2010, according to the latest data from the Office of the State Comptroller. However, the state still employed more workers than it did at the same point six years ago, in the wake of a less severe economic downturn and fiscal crisis. Read More
Assemblyman Sam Hoyt has given local residents a clear-eyed and realistic assessment of the fiscal crunch facing school districts throughout the region and the state Read More
Governor Spitzer’s proposed $120.6 billion budget called for state-funded spending growth of 7.8 percent — three times the rate of inflation — while raising business taxes by roughly a half-billion dollars. The budget also included a significant expansion of state-subsidized school property tax breaks for homeowners, to be phased in over three years. Read More
New York State educators are warning that proposed cuts in state aid to public schools next year could force more than 14,000 teacher layoffs. Officials of the state’s largest teachers’ union claim aid cuts will “devastate” education, leading to a “drastic” reduction of programs and “much larger class sizes.” Read More
“Fantasy in, fantasy out” is the way one leading economist has described the budgetary assumptions behind the new federal health care overhaul, which supposedly will reduce the projected federal deficit over the next 10 years even while creating two new federal entitlement programs. Read More
New York state educators are warning that proposed cuts in state aid to public schools next year could force more than 14,000 teacher layoffs. Read More