2:35 pm Oct. 4, 20121
Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, who's probably running for mayor next year, wants to tax "anything and everything," according to Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
This morning, de Blasio proposed a new tax on New Yorkers earning more than $500,000 a year, with the resulting revenue going to fund pre-K education for thousands of four-year-olds.
Also today, comptroller John Liu, another potential mayoral candidate, called for more than doubling the number of counselors in city schools.
This afternoon, at a press conference marking the first year of the mayor's Young Men's Initiative, a reporter began to ask him about those proposals.
"Mayor, two education proposals. Bill de Blasio wants to impose a tax to help …"
"On anything and everything," said Bloomberg, cutting him off. "He wants to drive everybody out of the city, but that's OK. He's a good guy."
What about Liu's guidance counselor proposal?
"You can never have enough guidance counselors, school crossing guards, physics teachers, whatever," said the mayor. "Every part of the city, we'd like to have more, but you have to have some kind of balance in the Department of Education consistent with how much money we have and our allocations of monies have to make those decisions. It's nice that they're focusing on it, but I think, in this case, the Department of Education is who I'll rely on to decide what we need."
UPDATE: De Blasio responds, rapidly, by tweeting an old Bloomberg quote, from a WNYC article, on the connection between taxes and people leaving the city: "I've never heard one person say I'm going to move out of the city because of the taxes. Not one."
Bloomberg has already driven people out of NYC with development and high rents. I live in Astoria, where the rents have been reasonable until Bloomberg took office. Under his watch, the average New Yorker is paying two-three weeks salary on a place to live. That's why people don't stay in NYC anymore. They come for a few years and move on to greener pastures. The idea of a true "New Yorker" will die out as the rents continue to increase.