Weiner Says Budget Cuts, Not Tax Hikes, Would Allow Improvements of Services
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Styling himself the protector of middle-class New Yorkers’ wallets, Rep. Anthony Weiner yesterday became the first Democratic candidate for mayor to propose budget cuts instead of tax hikes to finance his proposals for improving city services.
Mr. Weiner said his suggestions for removing $1.7 billion from the city’s budget – an expansion on a pledge made in April to eliminate the least efficient 5% of city programs – differentiated him from the Democratic front-runner, Fernando Ferrer, whom Mr. Weiner lambasted for trying to finance his campaign promises with “10-figure” tax hikes on the middle class.
“Unlike at least one of my opponents, I’m proposing real ways to pay for these initiatives,” Mr. Weiner said yesterday at a press conference on the steps of City Hall. “I do not believe that new Yorkers are undertaxed. I don’t believe that New Yorkers get up every morning and say, ‘I need more taxes in order to pay for the services we need.'”
Despite Mr. Weiner’s attempts to portray himself as a flinty alternative to Mr. Ferrer, only a fraction of his proposed $1.7 billion in reductions results from the elimination of wasteful programs. Around $1.1 billion would be saved by “reforming” or “streamlining” inefficient programs, such as the administration of Medicaid and the provision of supplemental health benefits to city employees.
Among the expenditures Mr. Weiner would actually cut are those associated with the Board of Corrections, which the congressman branded a duplicate of the state Department of Corrections. Eliminating the city entity and its 15 staff positions, Mr. Weiner said, would save $850,000.
The candidate also proposed eliminating the city Department of Education’s paid “parent coordinators,” intended to serve as liaisons between the parents of public school children and the educational apparatus. Mr. Weiner promised to switch the jobs to volunteer positions, saving $54 million.
The congressman also pledged to cut $400 million from the budget by refusing to provide city subsidies for the development of the far West Side of Manhattan, particularly the construction of a platform over the West Side rail yards. Mr. Weiner said he would save $12 million by eliminating the property-tax exemption for Madison Square Garden and $100 million by canceling the planned renovation of the Southwest Waste Transfer Station in Brooklyn.
Mr. Weiner said he would save an additional $75 million by requiring that the state shoulder the expense of keeping in city jails inmates detained on state charges and awaiting trials in state courts.
A spokesman for the Bloomberg campaign, Stuart Loeser, responded yesterday: “Anthony Weiner relies on shifting burdens from city tax bills to our state tax bills. That’s like paying off your MasterCard by maxing out your Visa.”
According to a budget analyst and the director of the Manhattan Institute’s Empire Center for New York State Policy, E.J. McMahon, city residents shoulder roughly 43% of the state’s tax burden. Mr. Weiner’s proposals to shift $75 million in city expenses to the state, then, would save New Yorkers only $43 million. The Weiner camp, however, maintained the congressman was still the only Democratic candidate proposing to pay for his campaign promises – including a proposed 10% tax cut for the middle class – by cutting wasteful expenditures instead of reflexively advocating tax increases.
At yesterday’s press conference, Mr. Weiner seized on this theme and stepped up his attacks from the previous week on Mr. Ferrer, who has proposed billions of dollars in tax increases to finance his proposals for improving city schools and providing “affordable housing” to low-income New Yorkers. The congressman said, however, that his quarrels with Mr. Ferrer were “not personal” and that if the former Bronx president wins the Democratic nomination he will also win Mr. Weiner’s vote.