Stay up-to-date on the companies, people and issues that impact businesses in Syracuse, Central New York and beyond.

OPINION: Supporting N.Y.’s Disability Community Benefits Us All
The Office of the New York State Comptroller [recently] issued an encouraging report indicating labor-force participation for working-age individuals with disabilities rose 4.6 percentage points between 2019 and 2024. This is welcome news, and I am glad to see initiatives aimed at increasing participation from the disability community have made an impact. However, more work […]

OPINION: Pro-Inflation Democrats Oppose Trump’s Plan To Help Farmers Boost Production
“The reason farmers need relief at all is largely because Donald Trump betrayed them and decimated their businesses with his disastrous tariffs.” That was Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y) making a speech on the Senate floor on Dec. 8 opposing President Donald Trump’s $12 billion Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) Program. The program is actually

OPINION: Any Plans to Raise New York’s Taxes Must Be Wholly Rejected
New York State’s economic climate is toxic, and any talk about exacerbating our existing tax burden must be met with fervent skepticism. Since New York City elected socialist Zohran Mamdani to be mayor, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s tone on taxes has become suspiciously ambiguous. Despite making claims to the contrary, it is clear the door is

OPINION: Our system of checks and balances needs attention
Checks and balances are essential to our representative democracy. Under our system of government, the legislative, executive, and judicial branches provide balance and prevent each other from growing too powerful. The American people have supported this arrangement. My concern is that the checks and balances have eroded. The system is under strain, and this feature

OPINION: New York State’s Raise the Age Isn’t Working; Reform is a Must
The abject failure of New York’s criminal-justice reform has been evident for years. For example, “Raise the Age,” which calls for many cases involving 16-year-old and 17-year-old adolescent offenders (AOs) to be heard in family court rather than criminal court, has done nothing to make New Yorkers safer. That is much like other failed “progressive”

OPINION: Congress Needs to Rebuild its Political Muscles
Watching the media’s reaction recently to the recent 427-1 vote in the U.S. House and the Senate’s unanimous consent for releasing the Epstein files, I was struck by two things. First, that even though the votes went against President Trump’s vehement opposition (until a few days before), they were hardly profiles in courage. As House

OPINION: Electric Mandate Delay is a First Step Toward Common Sense
New York State’s decision to suspend the implementation of the All-Electric Buildings Act is a major victory for families and businesses across the state. The measure would ban all new homes of seven stories or less from using natural gas and fossil-fuel-based equipment. It is unfortunate it took this long, but it is a relief

OPINION: Political violence undermines our nation’s democracy
I was in Congress for 34 years. During that time, I attended scores, possibly hundreds of public events. They were held in all kinds of places, in nearly every circumstance that you can imagine. I can recall only one incident of potential violence. There were sometimes heated disagreements, but almost never did people reject the

OPINION: Budget Update Paints Less Alarming Picture of Federal Health Cuts
A new fiscal report from the state Budget Division suggests federal-funding cuts will hit New York’s health-care budget less severely than officials had previously warned. A financial plan update released recently estimates that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed by President Trump this summer, will add $2.6 billion to the state’s health costs

OPINION: Too Often, Congress Treats Oversight as an Afterthought
Here’s something I’ll bet you didn’t know: Congress has no idea what’s happened to the funds it told the government to spend. It’s supposed to be in charge of the federal budget — appropriating money for parks and air-traffic control and public health and support for farmers and myriad other things — but as an
Stay up-to-date on the companies, people and issues that impact businesses in Syracuse, Central New York and beyond.