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
Public employee unions complained loudly when New York's state government workforce shrank during the coronavirus pandemic, using that decrease as pretext to press Governor Hochul and state lawmakers for more hiring and costly giveaways to benefit their members. But the latest data show nearly every state agency has more employees than it did a year ago, and that by at least one key measure, the state workforce is larger than it was before COVID. Read More
A billion-dollar Medicare windfall for upstate hospitals has turned into a crisis for upstate health insurers that's threatening to disrupt coverage for millions of New Yorkers. Read More
Governor Hochul’s plan to mail $500 checks to millions of households has a problem: the sales tax “surplus” she wants to dish out doesn't exist. Read More
What was expected to be a mundane state-ordered study into how Albany doles out cash to local school districts turns out to be required reading for New York taxpayers — and state lawmakers. Read More
Forty-four percent of the state’s population, including 60 percent of New York City residents, were enrolled in state-sponsored coverage through Medicaid or the Essential Plan as of September 2024—but more than 3 million appear to have incomes above the programs' eligibility limits. Read More
Fans of ’s “Medicare at Home” proposal should study up on New York’s bloated home healthcare system, which covers about 850,000 people. Its large scale and rapid growth embody a Read More