https://blog.thomas-bray.com/tags/northeast/Recent content in Northeast on Rabid CuriosityHugoen-usThomas BrayTue, 17 Mar 2026 11:25:00 -0500https://blog.thomas-bray.com/posts/public-finance-new-york/Tue, 17 Mar 2026 11:25:00 -0500https://blog.thomas-bray.com/posts/public-finance-new-york/<h2 id="new-yorks-fiscal-complexity">New York&rsquo;s Fiscal Complexity</h2> <p>New York is both a state and a city in a way that complicates most fiscal analysis. New York City&rsquo;s budget is larger than most states. The fiscal fortunes of the state are deeply entangled with the fortunes of the financial industry concentrated in Manhattan. And the political economy of a state that must satisfy both the country&rsquo;s densest urban core and large rural upstate regions produces a governing complexity with no real parallel.</p>https://blog.thomas-bray.com/posts/public-finance-northeast/Tue, 17 Mar 2026 10:30:00 -0500https://blog.thomas-bray.com/posts/public-finance-northeast/<h2 id="the-fiscal-character-of-the-northeast">The Fiscal Character of the Northeast</h2> <p>The Northeast—New England plus the Middle Atlantic states—is America&rsquo;s oldest industrial and commercial core. Its fiscal profile reflects that history: high taxes, high services, dense and aging infrastructure, and long-standing commitments to public institutions that are expensive to maintain and politically difficult to reduce.</p> <p>The region encompasses two distinct sub-regions with meaningfully different characters.</p> <h2 id="new-england">New England</h2> <p>Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont share geography but diverge sharply on fiscal philosophy.</p>