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“If the plodding national economy stumbles into another recession, New York — plagued by high unemployment and the prospect of a rising tide of layoffs on Wall Street — probably will take a tumble, too.” That’s the main takeaway from an article in today’s New York Times on the outlook for the city’s economy — which, of course, has inevitable implications for all of the Empire State. Read More

Declining bridge and tunnel traffic is one of the factors cited by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as justification for its proposed toll and fare increase, which has met with a predictable reaction from Governors Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie. But a closer look at the PA’s original traffic projections suggest they may have been inflated to start with. Read More

The on Wall Street are casting a cloud over New York State's financial projections. Governor Andrew Cuomo's , unveiled in February, assumed stock values would grow this year by 13.4 percent. This assumption was not changed in the Enacted Budget Fina Read More

If New York's state government unions ultimately reject with Governor Andrew Cuomo, the may ultimately deserve part of the blame. Triborough ensures that provisions of a public-sector union contract remain in effect even after the contract expi Read More

When Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli last month that New York's state and local pension fund had earned 14.6 percent on its investments in fiscal 2010-11, the AFL-CIO's Dennis Hughes the the comptroller's numbers had "call[ed] into question the need fo Read More

The governor who led New York State out of the fiscal crisis of the 1970s died Sunday at the age of 92. Carey’s last great public service came when he emerged from retirement in 2005 to fight a proposed constitutional amendment weakening New York’s executive budget law. Read More

For a second consecutive decade, New York State's "domestic migration" loss of residents to other states was the largest in the country as a percentage of its population, as documented in . Our negative net rate of total migration, after taking accou Read More

The image on the cover of New York State's is obviously meant to convey the sense that there's not only a light visible at the end of the budgetary tunnel, we're just about to emerge into broad daylight. But the report itself, released late yesterday Read More

Over the years, despite chronic complaints about their property taxes, Nassau County residents have shown a remarkable tolerance for high levels of local government spending -- which helps explain why their county finances are in such poor shape. Yes Read More

Governor Andrew Cuomo has been stumping the state to announce to implement the state's latest grand, government-driven strategy for creating jobs and economic growth.  Business groups around the state are treating it like a big deal, and the news m Read More

When New York State's first-quarter tax receipts came in nearly $800 million above the 2011-12 financial plan forecast last week, I that the anemic 1 percent year-to-year quarterly growth in personal income tax (PIT) withholding payments was "ground Read More

And speaking of debt: in its latest on the newly adopted New York City budget, the state Financial Control Board says the city's unfunded liability for "other post-employment benefits" (OPEB) could approach $100 billion in three years. As shown in th Read More