New York State and City continue to put faux pressure on municipal unions to win cost-savings concessions on pensions and healthcare costs for state and city taxpayers. Coincidentally, bond-raters at Moody's have just come out with a report that says Read More
Small towns are losing millions of dollars on derivatives bets just when they can least afford to lose money. Why are we surprised? Read More
New York State residents pay some of the highest local taxes in the nation. Until now, however, New Yorkers have had no easy way to compare basic fiscal measures for the local governments that account for a large share of the taxes they pay. Read More
Gov. Paterson came into office with a different attitude. David Paterson took office as governor of New York on March 17, 2008 -- the day Bear Stearns collapsed. He spent the following nine months warning of worse things to come. Read More
With enactment of the 2009-10 New York State budget, "New York will leapfrog New Jersey to claim the mantle of America's worst tax code for business." Read More
The Journal that the Chicago airport privatization, announced late last year, may falter. The deal, under which Citigroup (yes, that Citigroup) and John Hancock are supposed to pay more than $2.5 billion upfront to lease Chicago's Midway Read More
How big is the spending increase in the newly adopted New York State budget? How does it compare to previous spending trends? One of the many glaring shortcomings of the state budget process is that it is not possible to answer such questions w Read More
A federal judge has ruled that the destitute town of Vallejo, California, which filed for Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy last year, can petition the bankruptcy court to allow it to void and renegotiate labor agreements with local unions. Read More
[See update at end of item.] Buried in one of the now pending in Albany is what looks like a $1 billion federal stimulus aid slush fund, which could be "suballocated" by the governor to "to any state department, agency or public authorit Read More
New York's sinking economy still hasn't hit bottom. The state bud get gap continues to grow as tax revenues collapse into a black hole the size of Wall Street Read More
Ratings agency Moody's has put the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority in a sort of purgatory, noting (but more diplomatically than I will) that Albany's utter failure to solve a relatively simple problem "puts the MTA on an operating p Read More
As Albany over finding a new revenue source for the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the MTA released some numbers this morning showing that its budget situation is getting worse by the minute. Read More