Free Republic

In April, the New York State Comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, issued a damning report on the Empire State’s financial practices. Albany’s budgets, he observed, increasingly employ “fiscal manipulations” to present a “distorted view of the State’s finances.” Money shuffled among accounts to hide deficits, loans made by the state to itself, and other maneuvers Mr. DiNapoli called a “fiscal shell game” are meant to “mask the true magnitude of the State’s structural budget deficit.” The comptroller’s report produced yawns. Last week, however, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed fraud charges against New Jersey for misrepresenting its financial obligations, particularly its...

Not since Teddy Roosevelt took on Tammany Hall a century ago has a New York politician closely linked to urban reform looked like presidential timber. But today ex–New York mayor Rudy Giuliani sits at or near the top of virtually every poll of potential 2008 presidential candidates. Already, Giuliani’s popularity has set off a “stop Rudy” movement among cultural conservatives, who object to his three marriages and his support for abortion rights, gay unions, and curbs on gun ownership. Some social conservatives even dismiss his achievement in reviving New York before 9/11. An August story on the website Right Wing...