Yet Another Item For The Oppo-Research File

If there’s one thing we know about Presidential elections it’s that American voters don’t want to hear that you’ve raised taxes:

Rules dating back to the city’s fiscal crisis of the 1970s call for the sales tax charged in the city to drop 1 percentage point, to 7.375%, this summer. Mr. Bloomberg is working to make sure the scheduled tax cut never happens.

The Bloomberg administration is asking Albany legislators to authorize a tax increase that cancels out the reduction so that the tax remains at 8.375%.

“We are working with the State and we anticipate that they will provide the necessary authorization,” a spokesman for the mayor said via e-mail.

During the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, the state raised the city’s portion of the sales tax to four cents on each dollar of goods sold from three cents to create a revenue stream dedicated to bailing out the city from its financial troubles. When the law that imposed a financial control board on the city expires on July 1, 2008, the sales tax increase also is set to dissolve.

. . .

The 8.375% sales tax charged in the city is divided into three parts: 4% goes to the state, another 4% to the city, and .375% to the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District.

According to a Preliminary Official Statement from the city sent to prospective bond buyers on December 5, the city projects that if it is unable to push through the tax increase, sales tax revenues in the city would drop by approximately $1.19 billion in the fiscal year 2009, $1.25 billion in 2010, and $1.31 billion in 2011.

“On July 1, 2008, the local sales tax, which is currently imposed by the State at the rate of 4%, will expire and, absent legislative action, a 3% local sales tax imposed by the City would be in effect. The Financial Plan assumes that the City will receive the legislative authorization to continue the local sales tax at the rate of 4%,” the document states.

Previously on Why Bloomberg Will Never Run For President: Hizzoner explaining the Iraqi insurgency at Cooper Union, Hizzoner placing the threat of terrorism below that of a hurricane, Hizzoner being alarmist about a return to the days of Hoovervilles, the steak dinner genesis story, his administration’s spendthrift ways (no really, check the MySpace page) and — worst of all — his clumsy Wesley Clark-like name checking of Shakira. And that list doesn’t even take into account his pro-choice position . . .

We’ll Always Have Airport Village

Leaving a mixed legacy (1 Train 1 Stop!), Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff announces his departure:

Daniel L. Doctoroff was to have been the Robert Moses of the Bloomberg era, a bold visionary who would guide a sweeping revitalization of New York and put to rest the notion that the age of building big had ended.

But now, as Mr. Doctoroff ends his tenure as the longest-serving deputy mayor for economic development, much of his agenda remains unrealized, despite his many achievements.

Mr. Doctoroff, 49, announced yesterday that he would resign at the end of the year and become president of Bloomberg L.P. in February.

There is no question that he brought a brash new imagination and relentless determination to City Hall, but those very qualities sometimes alienated, rather than motivated, the people who could help him achieve his goals.

The announcement, which again blurs the lines between Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s public and private spheres, could signal the twilight of an administration still bursting with grand visions but running out of time, raising questions about what Mr. Doctoroff’s, and by extension Mr. Bloomberg’s, final legacy will be.

. . .

Chosen by the mayor as an outsider with a new vision for City Hall, Mr. Doctoroff brought a curly-haired, whiz-kid energy to the job and favored colorful PowerPoint presentations packed with history, statistics and renderings of what could be. He was often charming in public, but could be forceful and even threatening in private. He rode his bicycle from his Upper West Side home for 7 a.m. meetings and surrounded himself with a coterie of whip-smart young people, nicknamed the Kids, several of whom have gone on to important posts in the public and private sectors.

“He brought the private sector voice into City Hall, as opposed to government telling the private sector what to do,” said Marc V. Shaw, who served as first deputy mayor during Mr. Bloomberg’s first term.

Mr. Doctoroff’s impatience with bureaucracy and his disdain for what he regarded as the corrupt politics of Albany led him to attempt the unconventional, like using city money for the extension of the No. 7 subway line, rather than waiting for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to do it.

Dude, Go To The Bookstore, Dig Around The History Section, Grab A Paperback Of “Profiles In Courage” And Throw That Baby On The Coffee Table Before Anything Else Stupid Happens . . .

For illumination on Eliot Spitzer’s floundering governorship, look no further than his reading list:

Rudolph W. Giuliani has been talking up the new book by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France. Mitt Romney reads Thomas L. Friedman on globalization and Doris Kearns Goodwin on Lincoln. John McCain quotes from Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”

What about Eliot Spitzer?

Flying back from an environmental summit in Portugal this fall, he devoured a 40-year-old biography of one of his predecessors as governor of New York — a Republican, Charles Evans Hughes.

The book is subtitled “Politics and Reform in New York,” a vanilla description of Hughes’s destructive struggle with the State Legislature after his election in 1906 to the first of two two-year terms. It is one of several political histories Mr. Spitzer has read lately; another was Robert A. Slayton’s biography of Gov. Alfred E. Smith.

. . .

If Mr. Spitzer figures that all his problems will evaporate if Democrats seize control of the State Senate next November (for the first time since 1965), history says he might want to be careful about what he wishes for. Hughes’s chief adversaries were his fellow Republicans.

Robert Wesser, who wrote “Charles Evans Hughes: Politics and Reform in New York, 1905-1910” (Cornell University Press, 1967), concluded that he was insecure as a politician and ineffective as a party reformer. He would not bargain with lawmakers. And when he appealed directly to the voters, he “moved ahead of public opinion and never efficiently enlisted its support.”

Topping his political reform agenda was legislation to let the voters, instead of boss-dominated conventions, nominate statewide candidates. But all Hughes had to show for his dramatic battle for his direct primary bill, Mr. Wesser wrote, “was the satisfaction of having made the fight, not having won it.”

Jeez, even Bush knows to at least tell people he’s reading that massive Alexander Hamilton biography no one can seem to finish . . .

Hizzoner Trotting Around The World With A Gaggle Of Cameras Behind Him

Can Diane Cardwell be a little less subtle with today’s lede? No! Go, Diane, go:

As Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg again prepares to trot around the world with a gaggle of cameras behind him, a question is emerging: Is he traveling so much for the city? Or for much-denied presidential aspirations?

The mayor — whose official trips this year have taken him to Mexico, Paris and London as well as New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Seattle and St. Louis — will fly to China and Indonesia the week of Dec. 9.

He is taking along Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey, who has been promoting Mr. Bloomberg’s presidential prospects almost since the mayor was re-elected in 2005. The mayor is also bringing his companion, Diana Taylor.

While You’re At It, How About Also Considering A “Surge” Of 6 Trains?

This way he will be better equipped to answer the tough questions at controversial ribbon cuttings or perhaps even in response to contentious City Council resolutions. Hizzoner’s presidential aspirations surge ahead:

A report that a foreign policy adviser in the Clinton administration who is a critic of the war in Iraq, Nancy Soderberg, is briefing Mayor Bloomberg about the war offers some indication of the foreign policy approach Mr. Bloomberg might take if he were to run for president.

Ms. Soderberg is considered a centrist who supports using international institutions to further American interests abroad. In television appearances, she has spoken out about the war in Iraq, saying it has been botched from the beginning.