Instead of imposing higher taxes on an struggling economy, New York State legislators should be looking for more ways to save money in the $59 billion state funds budget Governor Pataki has proposed. Here's a by-no-means exhaustive list of eight cost-cutting steps that would add up to over $1 billion next year. Read More
Gov. George E. Pataki set just the right tone for this year's New York state budget battle when he opened the legislative session in January with a plea to avoid "job killing" tax increases. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver replied: "On the subject of taxes, let me be very clear, the Assembly is not advocating tax hikes." Read More
Long Island's State Senate and Assembly members are patting themselves on the back for having blocked a revival of the commuter tax. But they also have provided the pivotal bloc of legislative support for a big state income tax hike that will transfer more of the Island's wealth to places like Binghamton and Buffalo. Read More
Labor unions and their allies in New York's burgeoning health and social services sector are demanding new taxes on the wealthy to help close the state's $12 billion budget gap. After all, the argument goes, it's only fair to ask those who gained the most from the economic boom to bail the rest of us out of this bust. Read More
With New York's future at risk, Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg are taking sharply contrasting approaches to closing huge budget gaps. Or are they? Read More
Governor Pataki's 2003-04 budget proposal calls for smaller spending cuts than the budgets he proposed during his first two years in office—even though the current budget gap is more than twice as large. Read More
Given his Rockefeller Lite persona in recent years, no one would have been surprised if New York's Governor George E. Pataki had responded to a looming fiscal crisis with a round of tax increases, if not on the scale of Democrat Gray Davis's gargantuan $8 billion hike in California, then something like Republican John Rowland's soak-the-rich surcharge in Connecticut. Read More
Which key sector of New York's economy has experienced a deep slump that is largely to blame for recent state and city revenue shortfalls? And which sector of New York's economy will benefit the most from President Bush's new tax proposal? Read More
New York’s economy stands to reap enormous benefits from President Bush's proposed tax stimulus plan. Read More
Just how big is the New York City Transit Authority's deficit? The answer to that question appears to be (a) not nearly as big as the NYCTA would have had everyone believe going into the TWU talks, but also (b) not nearly as big as it will be once the Authority gets through paying for the wage and benefit increases in the new transit workers contract—unless a fare increase is approved soon. Read More
If the new transit workers deal is used as the “pattern” in the next round of collective bargaining with New York's public employee unions, the result would be $725 million in added labor costs for the state and $1.2 billion a year in added costs for the city, not including any offsetting productivity concessions. Read More
New York City’s impending property tax hike will lead to the loss of another 62,000 private sector jobs, re-accelerating a downward economic spiral that dates back to the end of 2000, according to a forecast by the Manhattan Institute's econometric model. Read More