Progressive New Yorkers are often tempted to shake their heads in wonder when they looking out across a national landscape where those who fight back against the class warfare so successfully waged by the wealthy are still being red-baited. Tempted, that is, until they stop and wonder why, in a City where the legislative Council is 94% Democratic, progressive governance and accomplishments seem such a distant dream.
The sobering reality is that we in New York City remain well in the grip of a version of trickle-down economics not so far removed from that of Bush and McCain. While our current Mayor, beloved by the press and his fellow moguls, is presented as The Hero who will right our ship of state, we get no explanation of how he managed to leave New York so dependent on, and so vulnerable to, the Wall Street economy.
Every once in a while, however, a window is opened on the embedded assumptions that shape City politics. The New York Times recently interviewed Felix Rohatyn, long-famed for bringing New York "back from the brink" of fiscal ruin in 1975. Rohatyn thinks we couldn't possibly have a better Mayor than Mike Bloomberg (Bloomberg is "as indispensable as anyone I know in doing that job"). Apparently Rohatyn is particularly reassured by comparing Bloomberg to himself: "I don't think there's anything I know about finance that [Bloomberg] doesn't know or can't get by snapping his fingers").
Entirely missing from Rohatyn's analysis, of course, was any reason why anyone should believe that Bloomberg has been or will be looking out for New York's middle and working classes. And Rohatyn provided the reporter (Sam Roberts) with a wonderful insight into why: The test of the city," says Rohatyn, "is whether it keeps attracting rich people, important people..."
It is thinking like this that perenially causes City policies to be skewed to favor the wealthy and well-connected, and that trivializes the essential question of how New York can continue to function when housing has become unaffordable for so many.
A "financial whiz" like Rohaytn or Bloomberg is always sensitive to the possibility that the wealthy might flee (though few remember that Bloomberg initially tried to lower taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, and lost the Commuter Tax in the bargain). What they never seem to get is that rising rents combined with the loss of rent-regulated units from the system operate as the equivalent of huge tax increases on those who are not wealthy. Mayor Bloomberg has never lifted a finger to strengthen rent regulation, preferring the system to die the death intended when George Pataki put the system on the road to ruin.
But maybe the City will keep on attracting rich people, important people. That's what counts, isn't it?
