New York

Illinois Says Stop Borrowing and Start Cutting

10/06/2010
by Ashley Muchow Pew Center on the States and the Public Policy Institute of Californiareleased a comprehensive study this morning zoning in on the public’s opinion of state fiscal management. The study, Facing Facts: Public Attitudes and Fiscal Realities in Five Stressed States, polled residents from five fiscally distressed states: California, Arizona, Florida, New York, and our very...

The Cost of Income Taxes

10/05/2010
by Ashley Muchow Arthur Laffer addressed a core issue regarding the economic impact of state income taxes in the WSJ today. Laffer addressed the often ignored negative impact income taxes have on state economies. Illinois’s personal income per capita decreased from 133 percent of the U.S. prior to its 1969 income tax levy,  to just 106 percent...

Grading Governors

09/30/2010
by Kate Piercy Some Governors have adjusted to the economic realities of the last few years better than others. How has our Governor responded? According to the Cato Institute’s 10th biennial survey of the best and worst Governors on fiscal issues, not well. Who were the stars and who were the slackers? The Wall Street Journal reports: The Cato...

How to Empty Fat Wallets

09/29/2010
by Kristina Rasmussen Earlier today I testified at a House Revenue committee hearing on the matter of online taxation. Up for consideration was SB 3353, and more broadly, the hearing served as a review of attempts to use online affiliates of Internet retailers to establish physical nexus for taxation purposes. So what’s at stake? Some want to impose so-called...

NYC Public Schools Chief: Superman Fan

09/28/2010
by Collin Hitt The new education documentary Waiting for Superman paints many public schools in Harlem in a terrible light.  So you might think that the head of NYC schools would be unhappy with the film. Not so. Schools chancellor Joel Klein: If you do one thing this weekend, go see Davis Guggenheim’s latest documentary, Waiting for Superman,...

States with Business-Friendly Policies Growing

09/28/2010
by Wesley Fox Over the last decade, Americans have steadily moved to states with lower taxes and fewer regulations on businesses.  The population of business-friendly states such as Texas, Florida, and Utah has increased significantly.  In fact, all three are expected to gain seats in the Congress after they are reapportioned. According to a recent...

The Next Mayor of Chicago

09/09/2010
by Collin Hitt The search for a new Cubs manager in many ways will be more exciting than watching that guy manage, when the time comes.  The sportswriters guarantee that. And it’ll probably be more fun to receive the job than to have it, at least in the short run.  The sportswriters make sure of...

Death to Middle Schools?

09/01/2010
by Collin Hitt An intriguing new study comes from a team of researchers led by Jonah Rockoff. It looks at middle schools in New York City, and compares them to elementary schools with a K through 8 grade span.  Students in the middle schools do worse than their peers who stay in the same school...

$500 Million in Efficiency Savings for NYC

08/02/2010
by Kate Piercy 8,000 vacant desks, nearly 11 percent of the workstations in the city government’s 19 million square feet of office space. Nine separate agencies to handle vehicle maintenance, operating 125 separate maintenance garages, some across the street from each other. Each city agency with its own HR department, with an overall ratio of...

Food Carts Get Backing of Chicago Alderman

07/30/2010
by Amanda Griffin-Johnson On Wednesday, Alderman Scott Waguespack introduced an ordinance that would allow mobile food trucks to prepare food on-site. The existing food trucks in the city are only allowed to sell food that is prepared and packaged beforehand. The Chicago Sun-Times reports: “If we have all of our bases covered in terms of health...