Politics and Government

New York's Comptroller says the passage of the state's third on-time budget shows "an improved, more efficient process between the governor and the legislature." But the state official who deals with the numbers has a few concerns about the $141.3 billion dollar spending plan.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo laid out an ambitious agenda around economic growth, innovation and clean energy in his proposed 2013-2014 Executive Budget.

The state legislature is finished voting on a $141.3 billion state budget, with the Assembly completing it's work shortly before midnight on Thursday. The final passage occurred one week past lawmakers’ s self-imposed deadline, but three days before the spending plan was actually due to be finished. 

The state budget includes a provision aimed at boosting the film industry in upstate New York. The new tax credit creates a two-tiered system that includes a 10 percent credit for productions using particular upstate locations.

The New York state budget calls for distracted drivers to pay a higher price for texting while driving or talking on the phone without a hands-free set.

It's known as the “three men in a room” style of decision making. For decades now, the governor and the two party's legislative leaders meet behind closed doors in the governor’s offices and decide key issues, like the contents of the state budget.

The new state budget that lawmakers are enacting this week contains a tax package that includes both tax breaks and tax increases. The spending plan comes just two months after Gov. Andrew Cuomo  said there would not be any new taxes in the budget.

State Senate Republicans are confirming that a key provision of New York's recently approved gun control law, the New York SAFE Act, will be postponed.

The state budget is on track to be finished on time, and before the March 31 deadline, now that all of the spending bills were finally printed shortly before midnight on Monday.

For the past 30 years, the nation has been on an incarceration spree. While some associate that change with lower crime rates, Alan Rosenthal from the Center for Community Alternatives challenges that view, and in this edition of the Campbell Conversations, discusses the harms to society, and to those trying to rebuild their lives, that have been brought about by what he terms “massive incarceration” and its race-based effects.

Hundreds of people from across the state turned out to Syracuse's Inner Harbor Saturday with one thing on their mind - the New York SAFE Act. The rally is the latest of several calling on the state to repeal the SAFE Act, which was the first gun control act passed after the school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

The New York State Senate held a rare Sunday session at the Capitol, in an attempt to get the state budget finished on time in the midst of major religious holidays.