Public Finance

New York's Not Exactly "Open For Business": Report

Governor Andrew Cuomo earned a big, fat D in a recent grading of his fiscal policies by the Libertarian Cato Institute.This, of course, comes as the governor has declared New York "open for business."Cuomo's D  -- on a scale of A through F -- might have a little bit to do with a different group ... More >>

New York Dems: Hey, Mitt Romney, Tell Us About Your Offshore Bank Accounts!

New York Democrats are welcoming GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney to the Empire State by kvetching about his failure to disclose a "sufficient"number of tax returns during his bid for the White House. Specifically, lefties are interested in a few offshore bank accounts the former Massachusetts ... More >>

Should Welfare Recipients Be Allowed To Use Public Assistance Cash To Buy Junk Food?

Yesterday, we told you about a piece of legislation proposed by an Upstate lawmaker that would ban welfare recipients from using public assistance money to pay for "sin activities" like gambling, strippers, alcohol and cigarettes. In response to our post, a reader posed an interesting question: if t ... More >>

Obama to Grad Students: Pay Up

To save student-loan programs, the White House has saddled master's and Ph.D. candidates with added debt.

How Billionaires, like Ron Lauder, Avoid Paying Taxes

​Ever wonder how the super rich avoid paying all those taxes? Well, the New York Times has an interesting takeout here on all the shenanigans folks like Ron Lauder, of Estee Lauder, do to shelter their billions. According to the Times' David Kocieniewski, Lauder, worth $3.1 billion, donates h ... More >>

Scientology's Top Former Spokesman Talks Spying; The Church's Hollywood Properties Probed

More amazing new material for Scientology watchers today. We only have time for a quick dispatch while we're out of the underground bunker and on the road. First, Mark Bunker continues to release tidbits from the full-length Scientology documentary he's making, and yesterday dropped this meaty mo ... More >>

Ai Wei Wei, Dissident Artist Freed From Jail, Fined Almost $2 Million

​Last week we reported that Ai Wei Wei, the dissident artist whose detention in China sparked international outcry, had been released after almost three months in jail. Authorities said he'd been released for health reasons, and for cooperatively copping to tax evasion. No details on the amoun ... More >>

Buy This Old Mafia File, Found in a New York City Taxi, For $10,000

P. 460: Carlo Gambino​An old Mafia file found in a black bag in the back of a New York City cab in the early '90s containing mug shots, criminal histories, lists of associates, kids' and wives' names, and the favorite hangouts of 843 Mafia members in the '50s and '60s -- a trove of fascinating ... More >>

Prince Charles in D.C. to Discuss the Future of Food; Airlines Appeal to Epicures

​An 86-year-old beer vendor at Shea Stadium has failed to prove discrimination when her employer reassigned her but not her younger co-worker. Court papers say she was replaced by a 75-year-old. [Reuters] World food prices nearly hit a record in April as grain costs increased, which boosted i ... More >>

House Votes to Block Federal Aid For Planned Parenthood

​The House of Representatives voted Friday afternoon to block Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funding by a count of 240-185. The measure was led by GOP Rep. Mike Pence, who argues that the government should not support organizations that "provide or promote" abortion. The group last ... More >>

Mike Bloomberg Draws Praise for the Same Budget Decisions That Reap Tabloid Ridicule for Shelly Silver

The recently passed Bloomberg and state legislative budgets each contained precisely the same, optimistic assumption that New York would get hundreds of millions of additional federal Medicaid funds even though the bill to provide the windfall was stalled in Congress. The Daily News said Bloomber ... More >>

Andrew Cuomo's Biggest Rival Won't Be the G.O.P.

It's Shelly Silver and the old-school Dems in his race to Governor

The Post's "Welfare" Fraud

​If you read the Which Lazy Bastards Are Ripping You Off section of yesterday's tabloids — you can find it after the Who Is Sandra Bullock Not Sleeping With/Adopting section — you may have spotted the story that the Post headlined "Millionaires' welfare 'con' ": The Brooklyn DA's o ... More >>

David Paterson vs. Philip Morris: A Great American Smokeout

​In today's battle of greater and lesser evils.... On one side, we have Altria (the pleasantly named yet clearly partial parent company of Philip Morris, which sells products that are proven to kill people). On the other, there's the Paterson team.

The Week of New York's Free Nicotine Fix: Reasons to Sign Up That Don't Involve Quitting Smoking

​Do you smoke? Doesn't matter. You should register for New York City's free patch and gum program going on for the next two weeks. Not because you're going to quit -- because, let's face it: you won't -- but because it's there for the taking. To be clear:

Manufacturing Surges in New York; New Jobless Claims Up

​The glory days of New York manufacturing may be over, but it's been coming back at a surprising rate. While manufacturing nationally was down a tenth of a point last month, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's general economic index, which measures production in the state, has risen from 4 ... More >>

Ditmas Park Mainstay Vox Pop Seized by the Tax Man

​ It looks like Vox Pop's voice has been silenced: yesterday afternoon, the Ditmas Park coffee shop was seized by the tax man for non-payment of back taxes. Ditmas Park Blog received reports of patrons being asked to leave by the cops, who then slapped the red badge of shame on the shop's Bob ... More >>

The Bronx tops food stamp list

New York Times graphic​Bronx County, with a 13.3% unemployment rate, has joined Hidalgo County, TX as the US counties of their size with the greatest share of people receiving food stamps at 29%. Nationally, 1 in 8 adults and one in 4 children are using food stamps, according to data collected ... More >>

More Tainted Meat; Illy Serves Starbucks

​ A new study reveals that half of American kids will live in households receiving food stamps before age 20. One in five will live on food stamps for years, while a number of kids will live in families who have to turn to food stamps during a short-term crisis. [USA Today] Spoiled meat alert ... More >>

Poll: Paterson Still Way Down; Voters Like Giuliani, Suggest He Run for Nothing

A new Siena poll reveals Governor Paterson down a few points with a 27 percent approval rating, but a point up in performance, bringing him to 19 percent. (One percent of respondents rate Paterson's performance "excellent.") Paterson loses to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo 70-20 percent in a prospect ... More >>

Campaign Finance Board Doles Out Matching Funds, Updates on Scandal (Updated)

The city's non-profit Campaign Finance Board has said it will dole out just over half a million dollars in matching funds to 42 candidates tomorrow morning -- the second-to-last financial package the candidates will receive before the September 15 primary election. Set to take in some of the large ... More >>

Gotbaum Hits Cuts to Her Office As "Payback from Speaker Quinn"

Because the Mayor talks about "belt tightening" and "sacrifice" when he cuts the budget, and you never hear from the civil servants who get those cuts in the neck, you might get the impression that they heroically and uncomplainingly shoulder their burden like good soldiers. Therefore it is both r ... More >>

City Money Made EZ: Yassky Web Site Offers Answers

Here's an early and useful dividend from the four-way race for the Democratic nomination for city comptroller: Candidate David Yassky, the Brooklyn city councilman who's been eager for an electoral promotion for several years now, today released his own Web site of city budget info. Yassky calls his ... More >>

What's Happening This Week

As many of you know, our weekly dining and drinking newsletter features all the hottest epicurean events in the city. Sign up for it here! This week, we bring you a little tax day relief and a beery movie night. The newly opened pizza-by-the-inch joint Golosi (125 Park Avenue) will have a tax day ... More >>

Upper White Trash: The Joy of Food Stamps

(Editor's note: this dispatch is from a middle-aged, college-educated Manhattan resident who has given the hell up and gone on welfare. Some weeks back he described the process of signing up for the dole.) Despite all the waiting and the hassle of dealing with a bureaucracy, the one bright spot of ... More >>

A City Income Tax Cut?

About 700,000 city residents live in households that earn less than $45,000 a year. Those households aren't required to pay state or federal income tax, but they still have to pay income tax in the city.Looking for ways to stimulate spending in a recession, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, alon ... More >>

Rightbloggers Celebrate Obama's Defeat on the Stimulus

The stimulus bill made it through both houses of Congress and awaits the President's signature. Its passage required nearly all available Democratic votes and a handful of Republican ones in the Senate. Considering how some of Bill Clinton's first encounters with Congress went, despite Clinton's m ... More >>

Tolling Bridges, Taxing Rich, Chaining City Workers to Desks Among City's Budget Options

This morning the city's Independent Budget Office issued its annual Budget Options document, a sprawling list of ways for the city to either save money or raise revenue. In past years, this was the kind of thing that only got policy wonks' hearts a-flutter; now, with the city staring down the barre ... More >>

The stadium-naming deal? Make Citigroup and the New York Mets bail the public out for a change.

In what's obviously a P.R. move, Citigroup says it's looking into pulling out of a $400 million marketing deal with the New York Mets. Here's the current situation: Citigroup is supposedly on the hook to pay $400 million to the Mets for the naming rights to the unwarranted new stadium. Meanwhile, ... More >>

City Offers 50% Tax Refund Match to Poor Folks

If you earn less than $20,000 a year, or are part of a family earning less than $45,000 a year, congratulations -- first, because you're somehow able to survive in New York on that, and second, because you're eligible for a $aveNYC account. Mayor Bloomberg offers you a place to put your tax refund, ... More >>

Bloomberg Leads Yankees in Steals

Scoreboards and other trinkets given to baseball's richest team

$1.19T Budget Deficit Will Normalize the Word "Trillion"

Obama is promising to exert all the fiscal control he can as President, and has even hired a new "chief performance officer," former McKinsey consultant Nancy Killefer, to oversee spending. Nonetheless he said today that he expects the budget deficit, driven by stimulus payments to put the ruined ec ... More >>

American kids' college plans face auto-destruct

Eating with the Pols: Council Member Eric Gioia

NYPD Gets Raises, More Perks in New Contract

Secrets of the Ratner Plan Revealed! (Not)

Gentlemen, Start Your Bulldozers

Mixed Money Messages

A Ground Zero Wish List

The Times' Sweetheart Deal

The paper gets huge subsidy, then sells old headquarters building for a huge profit

Your Corporate Congress at Work

Walking the Plank

Big Brother Gets a Brain

The Pentagon's Plan for Tracking Everything That Moves

Forget Your Problems, We're Preparing for a War

Bloomberg's Fragile Budget

Re-Election Year Politics Dictate Choices

The New Mayor’s Mission

To The Victor Belongs the Toil

The Battle of 2016

Progressives and Bush’s Wall Street Go to War Over Your Social Security Benefits

The Mystery Candidate

Hevesi Separates Himself From Rudy, Attaches Himself to UFT

Paper Tigers

Train Runs Over Rudy

Mayor Stands Up For City, Gets Clobbered By Runaway Commuter Tax Cut