India's current plight shows why it's not a good idea for any local or state government in America to think it can depend on private-public partnerships to fund its infrastructure construction projects once it's out of municipal-borrowing capacity (o Read More
Today's Times has an about the city's efforts to lure more of the biotech industry to New York by subsidizing real estate in Brooklyn and Manhattan. It inadvertently makes the case for across-the-board tax cuts. Read More
Governor Paterson will propose a mid-year cut in state aid to public schools as part of a $2 billion budget reduction package to be released tomorrow. Here's a chart that provides some perspective on the budgetary debate ahead: [caption id="at Read More
The “people’s right to know” is a hollow concept when government can withhold vital information until it is too late for the people’s voice to be heard. Read More
The Wall Street Journal has run my op-ed on the risks New York City faces in its approach to fiscal and economic problems. The thesis is that the city's main economic engine -- Wall Street and the financial-services industry -- cold be at th Read More
Yesterday, another New York art auction went , with a Christie's sale bringing in $146.7 million against a "low" estimate of $240.7 million. "Of the 82 works for sale, 36, or more than 40 percent, of the auction went unsold," the Times repo Read More
In the of today's , a Canadian takes aim at New York City's sky-high corporate tax burden: The effective combined U.S. federal, New York State and New York City tax rate of roughly 46% to 47% that corporations pay on their New York City Read More
IBM chief Sam Palmisano gave a to the Council on Foreign Relations today in which he proposed a private-public "smart systems"-led recovery for the economy. Read More
Governor Paterson's projects that New York State will lose more than 160,000 jobs during "the current downturn." But if history is any guide, that could turn out to be very optimistic. As illustrated below, the state lost 500,000 private sec Read More
Today, Mayor Bloomberg held his mid-year budget update at City Hall. Here is the big picture: The mayor is still planning for a severe but temporary downturn in revenues. But there's a very real risk -- one that went unmentioned by the mayor Read More
Late yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg announced a two-year labor agreement with District Council 37, New York City’s largest public-sector union. The agreement is a missed opportunity for the city, which stands on the brink of what could be an unpreceden Read More
The analysts at Municipal Market Advisors think that should Sen. Barack Obama win tonight, President Obama's planned income-tax hike on individual households earning over $250k could push up demand for tax-exempt municipal bonds. Read More