Two decades of abysmal failure is enough to embarrass even the New York State Legislature. And so, earlier this year, Senate and Assembly leaders agreed on a set of measures - a proposed constitutional amendment and an enabling statute - supposedly designed to guarantee an on-time budget every year. Read More
The saga of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) court challenge to New York state school-financing formula continues to unfold in depressingly predictable fashion. Read More
When independent "dollar van" operators began to proliferate in Queens and Brooklyn in the wake of the 1980 transit strike, local politicians moved quickly to protect New York's inefficient public (and union) transit monopoly. Read More
The largest privately run ferry service be tween New Jersey and Manhattan is seeking a financial bailout for at least some of its operations from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which already controls most of the bridge, tunnel and rail network that ferry riders are paying a premium to avoid. Read More
Perception has a way of trumping reality in politics. Just ask former president George H.W. Bush, who was denied re-election in November 1992 largely because he was perceived as doing too little to end a relatively mild national recession that actually had been over for a year-and-a-half. Read More
It's no secret that Republicans will be venturing into enemy territory next week when they gather in the heart of the Big Apple to renominate President Bush. Yet residents of New York — state and city — have been huge winners under the Republican president's economic policies. By the same token, New Yorkers would be big losers under the tax proposals of the Democratic candidate, Sen. John Kerry. Read More
This paper provides an Empire State perspective on federal income tax cuts enacted since 2001. It estimates the resulting decrease in New Yorkers’ tax payments and describes the implications for New York of proposed future changes in federal tax policy. Read More
City-funded spending would increase almost 10 percent under New York's newly adopted budget for fiscal 2005. The budget's financing structure, which relies heavily on prior-year surplus and one-shot revenues, sets the stage for a looming shortfall in fiscal 2006. Read More
A court-imposed dead line for changing New York state's school fund ing formula will probably come and go in the next two weeks, without any agreed-upon response from Gov. Pataki and legislative leaders in Albany. At that point, it will be up to state Supreme Court Justice Leland DeGrasse — and, by extension, the appellate courts above him — to decide what needs to be done to ensure a "sound basic education" for all New York City students. Read More
The 2003 New York State Court of Appeals ruling in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case has created a historic opportunity to reform New York City’s troubled schools. This opening was created because the court not only required changing the state aid formula to ensure a “sound basic education” for all New York City pupils, it also ordered that city schools be accountable for actually producing results. Read More
Thanks to state budget gridlock in Albany, New York City homeowners will have to wait at least a little longer for Mayor Bloomberg's $400 property tax rebate. Read More
A “budget reform” measure partially approved by the New York State Senate and Assembly is little more than a constitutional power grab by the Legislature and a prescription for higher spending. Read More