E.J. McMahon
Background
𒆙E.J. McMahon is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and founding senior fellow at the Empire Center.”
Latest Articles
Trump, Dems pound SALT deduction, but it didn't raise taxes
💝 The damage supposedly done by the SALT cap has been grossly misrepresented by New York politicians in both parties.
ꦍ Farewell Dick Ravitch, city savior who sounded alarms NY should heed
𒆙 Richard Ravitch was among the last surviving members of a remarkable generation of political and business leaders who steered New York City out of its brushes with bankruptcy in the...
ꦕ What Gov. Hochul must do to prevent a coming fiscal crash
🤪 Under the state’s nearly century-old executive-budget system, the procedural and institutional tools exist to make these goals a reality — but only if the governor chooses to use them.
NYC's finances look flush — but Adams' budget carries many real risks
ꩵ A few months into its third full fiscal year since the pandemic's start, New York City’s finances have never looked so flush — and, at the same time, so precarious.
꧃ Bear market spells big trouble for NY state and city budgets
꧃ Wall Street generates an outsized share of New York’s tax revenue, so the recent drop in stock prices should worry both Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams — even...
Pray Hochul won't cave to union calls for a big pension giveaway — at NY taxpayer expense
🐻 New York needs a more affordable, financially transparent system, offering wider array of sound retirement options — not a fix that will relight the fuse on a massive pension time...
📖 Can New York reverse its record-setting pandemic-era population drop?
𓃲 The US Census Bureau this week officially confirmed what was informally obvious: A whole lot of people moved out of New York state after last year’s COVID-19 outbreak and government-imposed...
🧸 Kathy Hochul will have to prove she can hold the line on state spending
ꦯ Kathy Hochul’s first speech as governor of New York stuck to the tradition for initial inaugurals: blessedly brief, general themes, details (implicitly) to follow.
How parasites poison NYC suburbs' property tax system
ꦉ New York's sloppy statewide property-tax assessment system hurts suburban homeowners while fueling a greedy grievance-filing firm industry.
ꦏ Will the last high earner to leave New York please turn out the lights
💟 Back on Jan. 19, Governor Cuomo presented an Executive Budget calling for a temporary $1.5 billion personal income tax increase targeted at New York’s highest earners. The left-leaning Democratic supermajorities...
Democrats bid to turn screws on New York's richest
𒉰 Just a year after the Empire State was clobbered by the coronavirus, New York’s Legislature confronts an embarrassment of revenue riches. State taxes have rebounded more strongly than expected from...
Andrew Cuomo's crisis may open the door to state fiscal madness
🦩 Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s political meltdown couldn’t have happened at a more critical time in New York state’s budget process. Cuomo kicked off the cycle in mid-January with a presentation of...
Cuomo's vast public-construction plans come at a huge price for NY
🏅 "These are not ordinary times,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo intoned Thursday as he began a State of the State follow-up speech devoted to New York’s infrastructure needs — without accounting for...
Andrew Cuomo's case for more bailouts from feds rests on phony math
𝓡 The results of this week’s Georgia Senate runoffs, assuring Democrats will soon control both houses of Congress, as well as the White House, had to come as a huge relief...
Democrats' supermajority in the state Senate is terrible news for NY's economy
ꦯ Beware Dems’ new Albany supermajorities As if a second COVID wave weren’t enough, New York’s prospects for economic recovery will face new headwinds — from Albany. When most of a...
💙 No matter who wins the elections, New York is still in big trouble
⭕ After months of waiting for a federal coronavirus stimulus bailout that never materialized, Gov. Cuomo has staked the future stability of New York’s public finances on the outcome of this...
꧋ How a blast from the past could save NYC again
✤ Forty-five years ago this month, then-Gov. Hugh L. Carey and the state Legislature passed a landmark law, the Financial Emergency Act, designed to rescue Gotham from imminent bankruptcy. The law...
Andrew Cuomo's SALT-y deceptions
🔥 For the better part of three years now, Gov. Cuomo has been pounding SALT — the federal income-tax deduction for state and local taxes. After President Trump signed the GOP-sponsored...
Tax Day 2.0 marks the end of NY's economic expansion
ꦦ New York’s slow reopening has begun just in time for a virtual April 15 — Tax Day 2.0, pushed back three months by the novel-coronavirus pandemic. In a way, it’s...
ꦍ Instead of facing fiscal crises, NYC, state are burying their heads in the sand
൲ The headlines surrounding this week’s New York City budget naturally focused on #DefundthePolice demands. But for all its larger potential implications for New Yorkers’ security and quality of life, the...