Good for Joe Lhota. When the GOP candidate for mayor released the first ad to hit his Democratic rival hard — for policies that would undermine the cops’ success in driving crime down to levels that are the envy of every other big city in America — Bill de Blasio complained it was “divisive” and “inappropriate.”
But Lhota hasn’t backed down, and that’s a good thing. It will make for an even better mayoral debate if Lhota follows up tonight by turning the tables on de Blasio’s preferred tactic in the first debate, which was to focus on Lhota’s “ideology.”
If de Blasio tries that again, Lhota would do well to turn the tables by highlighting the connection between de Blasio’s ideology and, say, his approach to taxes. The combined top city and state income-tax rate here is 12.7 percent. Only California’s is higher, at 13.3 percent.
Every day these high rates are sending more of our tax base to more business-friendly locales. And what is de Blasio’s answer? To jack them up even higher. Indeed, Joe might want to ask de Blasio if there’s any point in his ideology where a liberal can say taxes are too high.
Or take spending. New York spends more than any other city in America. We’re a big city, of course, but we spend more proportionately, too. It would be worth asking de Blasio if he thinks we get good value for it.
Mayor Bloomberg points out that New York City now spends more for pensions each year than for its operating budgets for the police, fire and sanitation departments combined. So again, it would be worth asking de Blasio to explain why in his ideology this is not enough.
At its core, de Blasio’s Tale of Two Cities is a government-heavy approach that will tax more, spend more and regulate more. That’s an ideology, too.
And we’re not surprised that de Blasio would rather complain about his rival’s imagined ties to the Tea Party than explain why an ideology that has bankrupted so many other cities will somehow work in New York.