New York for decades has collected, under various names, a special tax on mobile phones. The tax, which today shows up on customer bills as the “public safety communications surcharge,” devolved from being a fee to pay for 911 services to a general revenue source with 911 services as a near second thought. Since 2009, almost half the surcharges paid by customers for public safety communications—more than $1 billion—have been redirected to New York’s general fund. Read More
New York officials are celebrating the potential arrival of a major computer chip manufacturer. Applying "the Micron test" reveals many obstacles that other companies face. Read More
One of the biggest drivers of New York's Medicaid enrollment growth over the past decade has been "emergency Medicaid" for undocumented immigrants, newly released state records show. Read More
A central provision of New York state law — its prohibition on public-employee strikes — is at risk of breaking into pieces, as Gov. Hochul frantically tries to tape the shards back together. Read More
The Health Department has been either unable or unwilling to document the eligibility status of almost one million Medicaid recipients, raising further concern about the possibility of large-scale over-enrollment. Read More
Although Governor Hochul said last week that the current trajectory of Medicaid spending is "not sustainable," the upward trend is even steeper than she and her budget director have acknowledged. Read More
New York in 2022 told school districts they’d be barred from purchasing gasoline- or diesel-powered buses after 2027, and instead have to buy electric buses at more than double the upfront cost. “The purchase of new electric buses will help grow the market,” officials later pledged, “which will in turn help reduce prices.” Unfortunately for taxpayers, those reductions aren’t materializing—because state officials put the prices, and future increases, on cruise control. Read More
Perhaps the most damning commentary on Gov. Hochul’s Medicaid spending plan — which made up roughly half of the $252 billion state budget she released Tuesday — was the silence of the attack dogs. Last year, the hospital lobby spent millions on TV ads falsely accusing Hochul of “cutting” the state-run health plan, which covers 7 million lower-income New Yorkers. This year, the ad campaign has gone quiet, a sign she is giving hospitals everything they could want and more. Read More
Financing and regulating health care delivery is one of the biggest responsibilities of state government, yet Governor Hochul had remarkably little to say on that topic in her State of the State speech on Tuesday. Read More
Governor Hochul is hammering an “affordability” theme in the leadup to Tuesday's 2025 State of the State address. But her campaign, dubbed "Money In Your Pockets," has so far featured little that would reduce the cost of providing, and therefore buying, goods or services in New York. Instead, the biggest announced and expected elements reflect Albany's waning interest in growing the state economy—and a greater appetite to redistribute what it produces. Read More
Governor Hochul on Saturday signed an innocuous-sounding bill to “regulate the use of automated decision-making systems and artificial intelligence techniques by state agencies.” But the “Legislative Oversight of Automated Decision-making in Government,” or LOADinG Act, wasn’t about protecting New York from self-aware computers trying to wipe out humanity. Instead, it was an early Christmas present for the state's public employee unions—and a lump of coal for New Yorkers hoping for more efficient state government. Read More
A legislative hearing into spending by the state’s sprawling energy agency featured a surprise guest who offered sober warnings about Albany’s energy policy. Read More