Federal Government

The House of Representatives Meddling in NYS Internal Fiscals

March 22, 2017 Budget

I’m analyzing NYS options if the AHCA becomes law including the amendment pushed by Congressmen Collins and Faso. I’ll post that later today. For some context and history, it will be useful to read this post from five years ago. Note that the number in the earlier post is $8 billion while the estimated effect […]

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“Prioritizing” Federal Payments?

October 16, 2013 Cash

During the depth of the recent Great Recession, senior Budget and Finance staff would gather in my office once a week to decide which vendors our county would pay that week and which would not. We knew our cash position and which checks had been printed and held. While we had some idea of expected […]

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Facts? We Don’t Need No Steekin’ Facts

October 16, 2013 Congress

The current craziness in Washington would be bad enough if it were based on actual facts. It isn’t. Nevermind that “austerity” as a policy emphasis is counterproductive while the economy is still sluggish, unemployment remains high, and the economy could be more robust without inflation … despite the political rhetoric and the conventional wisdom from […]

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FAA Airport Tower Closings

March 23, 2013 Budget

Being a former Air Force pilot and still something of an aviation geek, I’m checking this list to see which of these airports – whose towers will be closed – I’ve landed at. All these closures are due to the Federal Budget cutbacks built into the “Sequester,” non-thinking, across-the-board cuts. Tower closures do not equate […]

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The Long – Post Sandy Disaster – Haul and Some Advice

November 3, 2012 Economics

Back in 2005, my wife and I suffered through a fire. We had just completed moving into a downtown Albany neighborhood, the new place was jammed with boxes, the furniture was randomly placed, and we were exhausted. So we took the weekend off to rest in New Hampshire. On our return, we discovered that our […]

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The Presidential Election – Women and Men and the Distribution of Power

October 18, 2012 Election

As I’ll be on the West Coast election week, I voted yesterday. I voted to re-elect President Obama. Those who know me or who don’t, but who read what I write here or on Twitter, certainly won’t be surprised. But if all you know is my fiscal conservatism and my inclinations towards economics, you might […]

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More on, and a Possible Correction on IGT

June 7, 2012 Budget

Last week, we noted that the Federal government wants some of its IGT money back. I’m not, not, not going to try to explain how this program works or why and how counties put up $.50 on one day and the next day their nursing homes get back $1.00. But during the recession, counties only […]

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No. Intentional Ignorance Does Not Improve Public Policy. Or Politics. Or Business.

May 30, 2012 Census

Earlier this month the House of Representatives voted to eliminate funding for the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS). Lest you think that my objection is nothing more than my geeky self looking for more data to bathe in, here are a couple of examples of how these data are used: Distributing $400 billion in […]

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Chronically Confident Calculations

May 29, 2012 Budget

In Bias in Government Forecasts, Jeffrey Frankel, an economist at Harvard’s Kennedy School asks the question, “Why do so many countries so often wander far off the path of fiscal responsibility?” In his the full paper at the Oxford Review of Economic Policy Frankel details how national governments (with very rare exceptions) propose consistently optimistic […]

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Albany County. Once Again Between a Nursing Home Rock & a Nursing Home Hard Place

May 22, 2012 County Government

Albany County Legislators are frustrated. They want to build a new nursing home, but they’ve bungled it repeatedly so they’re in a “no-man’s land” in the approval process. At the same time, Federal regulations require all Federally qualified nursing homes to have sprinklers by August of 2013. The only exception to the rule is when […]

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