{"id":3530,"date":"2008-06-14T07:47:56","date_gmt":"2008-06-14T12:47:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/?p=3530"},"modified":"2008-06-14T07:47:56","modified_gmt":"2008-06-14T12:47:56","slug":"finally_a_seasoned_politician_emerges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/06\/finally_a_seasoned_politician_emerges.html","title":{"rendered":"Finally, A Seasoned Politician Emerges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mayor Bloomberg figures out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nypost.com\/seven\/06142008\/news\/regionalnews\/we_may_have_to_dump_property_tax_cut__mi_115453.htm\">the art of promising big, untenable proposals and quietly dumping them when it&#8217;s obvious that they are unaffordable<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Mayor Bloomberg dropped a financial bombshell yesterday by saying he&#8217;s &#8220;not sure&#8221; the city can still afford the 7 percent property-tax cut that he had included just six weeks ago in his 2009 executive budget.<\/p>\n<p>The mayor&#8217;s startling assessment came as he and the City Council were within days of wrapping up negotiations on the new $60 billion budget for fiscal 2009, which starts July 1.<\/p>\n<p>Officials said a repeal of the tax cut &#8212; which would sap $1.2 billion from property owners &#8212; had never come up in those talks.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is the first I&#8217;m hearing of that,&#8221; said surprised Councilman David Weprin (D-Queens), chairman of the Finance Committee.<\/p>\n<p>Sounding gloomier than ever, Bloomberg warned that Wall Street profits are falling off the cliff with $20 billion in losses recorded in the first three months of this year.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And he must be enjoying watching the City Council twist in the wind about it:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Judging from the initial reaction of legislators, the mayor faces an uphill fight.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a nonstarter,&#8221; said Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Wall Street numbers are definitely problematic,&#8221; said Weprin. &#8220;At this point, I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s any need to panic. We can always do a mod [budget modification] later.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) said retaining the property-tax cut remains a &#8220;priority&#8221; for the council, as does restoration of budget cuts that impact classrooms.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Gioia, Weprin and Quinn: all term limited.<\/p>\n<p>Annotation: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cityhallnews.com\/news\/128\/ARTICLE\/1187\/2007-06-11.html\">For Queens in &#8217;09, Candidates in Spades<\/a> (City Hall News, June 11, 2007)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mayor Bloomberg figures out the art of promising big, untenable proposals and quietly dumping them when it&#8217;s obvious that they are unaffordable: Mayor Bloomberg dropped a financial bombshell yesterday by saying he&#8217;s &#8220;not sure&#8221; the city can still afford the 7 percent property-tax cut that he had included just six weeks ago in his 2009 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,63,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-follow_the_money","category-grandstanding","category-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}