While Tuesday's stock market slide was a timely reminder of New York's fiscal vulnerability to external shocks, Eliot Spitzer was already voicing concern about the state's economic prospects during his campaign for governor last fall. Read More
Research
As if New Yorkers didn't already suspect that they're far more heavily taxed than residents of other big cities, the city Independent Budget Office yesterday issued a study proving it more conclusively than ever. Read More
New York’s state legislators have a long history of lavish pork-barrel spending. Much of this spending comes in the form of appropriations known as “member items” — operating grants to local community groups, labor unions and advocacy organizations. But while individual senators and Assembly members are willing to selectively publicize the nature and purpose of their own pet projects, the Legislature as a whole has tried to keep much of the budgeting process for the member items under wraps. Read More
Governor Spitzer’s 2007-08 Executive Budget calls for a series of Medicaid cost-containment measures, including a freeze on hospital and nursing-home reimbursement rates. These steps are appropriate and justifiable-but they only scratch at the surface of the problem. Read More
Eliot Spitzer’s first year as governor of New York has seen the state workforce grow to its highest level since Mario Cuomo’s last year as governor, according to payroll data from the state Comptroller’s Office. Read More
Governor Spitzer's first Executive Budget would raise state spending by up to three times the projected rate of inflation in the fiscal year that begins April 1. Read More
The state-funded portion of Spitzer's $121 billion Executive Budget (excluding federal aid) calls for a spending hike of 7.8 percent - three times the projected inflation rate for the state's 2007-08 fiscal year, which begins April 1. Read More
Looking ahead to the first budget of his administration, Governor Spitzer pledged earlier this month to "make hard choices and begin to fundamentally reform and restructure programs that have become needlessly expensive" and to "say ‘no' to budget requests we simply cannot afford." Read More
Attacking Albany's complicity in "the unchecked growth of pensions" for New York employees, Mayor Bloomberg last week said it was high time the city gained more direct control of its own retirement benefits. Read More
News coverage of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's first State of the State message invariably highlighted his proposal for what has been widely billed as a $6 billion property tax reduction. . . Read More
Gov. Spitzer won't present his first Executive Budget for another four weeks, but the essence of New York's financial situation could be distilled from three sentences in his first State of the State Address yesterday Read More
When George Pataki took office as governor in January 1995, New York state was only feebly recovering from its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Pataki wanted to jump-start the economy with lower taxes — but he also had inherited a $5 billion state budget shortfall from Mario Cuomo. Read More