Some of New York’s worst tendencies in bargaining with government unions were on display yesterday in Buffalo—even before the school board illegally took things behind closed doors. Read More
Research
Based on the latest revenue numbers, New York State's fiscal situation is getting tighter by the month. Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s energy czar isn’t letting facts get in the way of attacking the growing number of dissenters who challenge Cuomo’s new Clean Energy Standard. Read More
Does the massive tax loss claimed by Donald J. Trump 20 years ago point to some sort of loophole for the wealthy in New York State's current tax law? That's the implication of Jim Dwyer's column in today's New York Times. But Dwyer reads too much into some data from the city's Independent Budget Office. Read More
New York ranks 49th out of 50 states in the Tax Foundation's 2017 State Business Tax Climate Index, released today. (New Jersey seems permanently mired in last place, so we've got that going for us, which is nice.) The Empire State's overall ranking on the widely noticed index is unchanged from last year, has ranged between 48th and 50th for a decade now, and has been 49 for most of Governor Andrew Cuomo's tenure. Read More
In what amounts to an unlegislated state tax hike, New York's already-high electricity rates are poised to go even higher. That’s because, essentially at Gov. Cuomo’s order, the state Public Service Commission will require electric utilities to both subsidize money-losing upstate nuclear plants and buy power from “renewable” energy sources, mainly solar and wind-generated. Read More
New York's new Clean Energy Standard has three major shortcomings: high cost, questionable feasibility and low impact. Read More
Per-recipient spending by New York's Medicaid program has long far exceeded the national norm, a telling symptom of inefficiency in the state's health plan for the poor. But the gap appears to have narrowed significantly during Governor Andrew Cuomo's term, with New York's spending rate falling at about twice the national average between 2010 and 2014. Read More
Earlier this month, Gov. Cuomo paid a visit to the centerpiece of his upstate economic development strategy: a massive, still unfinished “gigafactory” taxpayers spent $750 million to build and equip for SolarCity, a money-losing company with a foggy future. “This is the economy of tomorrow,” the governor gushed, according to a Buffalo News account. “It’s such a metaphor — a symbol of everything we’re doing.” Indeed. But rather than symbolizing a shiny high-tech future, the solar-panel factory could become a monument to what US Attorney Preet Bharara described as “pervasive corruption and fraud” allegedly infecting Cuomo’s signature economic development programs. Read More
The latest federal estimates of the 2014-15 change in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by metropolitan area provide a fresh perspective on upstate New York's persistent economic weakness. With a real (inflation-adjusted) GDP gain of 2 percent—good enough to rank 154 out of the nation's 382 largest metros—Albany-Schenectady-Troy was upstate New York's fastest-growing area last year, according to preliminary estimates from the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The average GDP growth for all U.S. metro areas was 2.5 percent. Read More
New York's preliminary employment numbers August were a near-repeat of July: private-sector job creation in the Empire State trailed the national average, with nearly all the net gains concentrated in New York City and its surrounding suburbs. Read More
New York’s hospitals are outpacing the nation in reducing avoidable readmissions, according to the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Read More