NEW YORK -- If you added up the approval ratings of President George W. Bush and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, you'd get 100. Bush can claim 70 of those points. Bloomberg has resorted to stumping in the boroughs during Sunday-afternoon nerve-gas-attack simulations. He's already being called a one-term mayor.
It's the economy's fault, of course. Rudolph Giuliani's bull-market recklessness and the World Trade Center attacks were a one-two punch for the billionaire mayor, and the spiraling costs of beefed-up security and the ongoing recession have left him clutching the ropes.
Enter the state legislature, with smelling salts. United by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Speaker Joseph Bruno, normally fractious Albany lawmakers easily overrode Governor Pataki's budget veto on Monday.
The legislature's budget allows Bloomberg to jack up income taxes on city residents making six figures and up and to raise sales taxes, averting thousands of layoffs threatened under his so-called doomsday plan. "The state Senate and Assembly have done a service for the people of New York City," the mayor said in a statement after the vote. You could hear him gritting his teeth.
The mayor needs our help. Last week's "New York" magazine inspired me to do a little outreach on his behalf. For a feature called "The Cash Crunch," New York brought together "a quorum of prominent New Yorkers" to "contribute the most valuable things they have: their ideas." Those with the most valuable things had the least valuable ideas. Donald Trump: "We should fight like hell to have business move quickly into the city, to expand business in the city. We could give incentives and make it extremely comfortable for them." Them? Why, who could that be?
No, I thought it would be better to talk to prominent New Yorkers in my neighborhood in Astoria, Queens, to see what they thought could be done to revive our mayor and our city. At Zanni's Luncheonette, Zanni's son Jimmy Raissis was already waving his spatula behind the counter when I came in for my morning coffee. "They've got us by the throat!" he screamed. "They're looting us! They're taking us to the cleaners -- legally!"
He didn't much like the idea of the sales-tax hike, but then, Jimmy doesn't much like a lot of things the city government does. "We need some accountability about where this money goes each day, each month, each year -- but that would be hanging themselves." He referred to a New York Post story about a janitor making $196,000 a year. He suspects there are others. "If I had my choice, I'd get the hell out of here and never come back. I'd go to Australia."
Frank Santiago, a 72-year-old retired truck driver, nodded slowly. "We've got enough revenue here already," he said. The problem was "the waste they have in all these different departments." He pointed outside, to where a neon-vested city worker stood on the sidewalk, apparently guarding a sawhorse. Santiago was keenly aware of paying for this activity. "They jack up the prices on the things they know people need the most," he said. "The mayor should use his brain."
He thought Pataki was "doing a good job -- not great, but OK."
At the bar next door, later that night, Eddie Devine, a city worker, said that things would improve if "everyone had more sex." A retired police officer who ferried hundreds of millions of dollars to South America each week for the Federal Reserve said, "I'd pay anything to live here. New York's the greatest city in the world" if you don't count Montevideo, Uruguay. He declined to give his name.
Alex Held, the owner of Bleecker Street Records, blamed Giuliani for the current mess. "They were getting fat for a few years, and they thought it would go on forever," he said. "That was idiotic." His three targets -- bureaucracy, welfare and corruption. "And you have to cut taxes in some way that doesn't hurt the middle class," he added.
The next day, I asked my optician, Michael Schrier, what he thought Bloomberg could do. "I'll tell you what he shouldn't have done," Schrier said. "Ban smoking. That was a big mistake." The law, he said, was a kick in the teeth to small businesses still reeling from the Sept. 11 attacks and the market downturn. Schrier owns a house in the suburbs, so he can also feel the pain of city property owners, whose taxes just went up 18 percent. "Truth is, it's a pittance compared to what we pay in Rockland and Nassau Counties, but it's not the way to close the gap."
More negatives from the guys at the Strand Bookstore in Greenwich Village. "What should not be done is, people shouldn't be arrested for having their feet up in the subway," said Stephen Billick.
"Or for sitting on milk crates!" added Matt Folden. (The day before, a man out in the Bronx had been fined for sitting on a milk crate on the sidewalk. The word was that Mayor Mike had ordered cops to bust people for mini offenses in order to raise revenue.)
Andrew Shapiro, another Strand worker, thought the city could save money by cutting back on security, but he knew it would never happen. "They're spending money to make people feel safe, but there's not much they can do beyond common sense. It's P.R. more than anything." It was a red-alert day, but none of us seemed to care.
"Nothing can be done," Folden sighed. "Giuliani did all the damage. He cut all sorts of taxes and spent lots of money making things look nice."
"Put that down," said Billick. "Nothing can be done -- Matt Folden, Strand Bookstore."
Myself, I'd like to see the commuter tax reinstated -- it's one of the ones that Giuliani cut during the gold rush. Commuters have far higher incomes than city residents, and they use city services, so they should pay. And how about a plastic bag tax? In Ireland, a 15-cent tax on the plastic bags given away free at supermarkets was enacted in March, 2002. It has cut bag use by 90 percent and has raised $3.4 million for environmental programs. A similar one has been floated here in New York to bolster public park maintenance, which is also sagging.
It's a no-brainer, but Bloomberg hasn't been much of a friend of the earth. Shortly after taking office, he put a moratorium on plastic and glass recycling in the city, so even more Big Apple junk is ending up in landfills. The mayor says that he's found a way to "make recycling pay." But thanks to the hiatus, New Yorkers will have to be re-educated on what goes where, a campaign that will probably cost more than what the city saved during the suspension of service.
At Zanni's Luncheonette, Jimmy said something that struck me: "The mayor raised taxes in 1953 and 50,000 people got up and went to Long Island, leaving him holding the bag." Bloomberg was even less fortunate, for it was Giuliani who lowered taxes, then slipped away a hero, leaving Bloomberg holding the bag. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Billionaire or no, it almost makes me feel sorry for the guy.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | May 27 2003 |