Politics on the Hudson

   The Manhattan Institute’s “Fiscal Watch” Web site, which focuses on New York budget and finance issues, was recently expanded to include a blog. Its contributors are E.J. McMahon, the Manhattan Institute’s senior fellow for tax and budgetary studies and director of the Empire Center for New York State Policy; and Nicole Gelinas, a Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow. The Institute is a conservative think-tank.

   With New York’s cash crunch, the two will have plenty to write about. The state faces a potential budget gap of up to $8 billion next year. Gov. David Paterson has called the Legislature back to Albany Nov. 18 to cut as much as $2 billion from the current year’s budget. He plans to release his proposed budget in December, a month early.