Gov. Spitzer's second annual State of the State message yesterday featured what may ultimately stand out as his Nixon-goes-to-China moment. Annoying a powerful ally - and embracing a concept he had rejected during the 2006 gubernatorial campaign - Spitzer said he would form a special commission to recommend a "fair and effective cap" on school taxes in New York. Read More
Sen. Hillary Clinton is running for president, in part, on a platform that calls for more government health care. So let's ask a question that may hit a little too close to home: Why does New York spend more on Medicaid—a health-care program for the poor—than every other state but still have a larger portion of its population walking around without health insurance than states that spend far less? Read More
What's the best way to ensure that all New York State residents-adults and children alike-have access to affordable health-insurance coverage? Read More
As teammates on the New York Yankees, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez get to perform on a stage suited to their outsized talents. But Jeter's dispute with state tax officials highlights the price such stars must pay to strut their stuff in Gotham. Read More
Soon after the end of the Transit Workers Union's illegal 60-hour walkout in December 2005, Local 100 President Roger Toussaint boasted that his members had made good on a "credible threat" to strike. Later today, a state judge in Brooklyn will decide if they can get away with it. Read More
What does Rep. Charlie Rangel have against his hometown, anyway? Anyone who didn't know better would think the "mother of all tax reforms" unveiled last week by the House Ways & Means chairman from Harlem was designed by rural populists to suck more juice out of the Big Apple. Read More
The Taylor Law was designed to create a comprehensive framework for orderly resolution of labor-management disputes in state and local government. After a rocky start, it succeeded. Read More
After the record jump in Wall Street bonuses early this year, a slowdown in personal-income growth in New York and other finance-intensive states was inevitable in the second quarter. Read More
A Spitzer administration plan to add at least 60,000 kids to the state's government-subsidized Children's Health Insurance Program now hangs in limbo in the wake of new regulations issued recently by the Bush administration. Read More
Eliot Spitzer was swept into office by a record plurality, surrounded by impossibly high expectations that have already begun to deflate. As if that weren't enough, he was also the first New York governor since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1929 to take office at the peak of an economic expansion - which creates some heightened expectations of its own. Read More
The Rudy Giuliani presidential campaign is running a new radio ad boasting, among other things, that the former mayor "turned a $2.3 billion deficit into a multibillion-dollar surplus and cut or eliminated 23 taxes" during his years in City Hall. Read More
Instead of permanently cutting tax rates, New York state is borrowing a gimmick retailers use to avoid cutting prices: the mail-in rebate. The Department of Taxation and Finance is inviting homeowners to apply for a property tax discount. Read More