Now this is rich.
Bill de Blasio, who wants to tax the wealthy to fund preschool classes, described himself as a “fiscal conservative” Friday before an influential business group.
Despite some chuckles, most of those packed into the Marriott Marquis’ glittery ballroom sat expressionless at the startling self-assessment from the Democratic mayoral candidate, who for the past year has been running on a sharply left-wing platform.
“I want to pleasantly shock the room and say I am a fiscal conservative,” de Blasio responded when asked at the Association for a Better New York breakfast if he intended to raise the hotel tax.
He said he couldn’t make any fiscal promises because balancing the city’s budget would take first priority.
“When people come up and say, ‘Will you commit to one percent of the budget for this or two percent of the budget for that? Will you commit to this tax cut?’ I say no to all of it, honestly, respectfully, because we are going to have a real fiscal challenge ahead because of the open labor contracts and huge unknowns,” de Blasio said.
When asked by reporters to elaborate, he sounded like Mayor Bloomberg.
“It means we have to balance our budget every year and the discourse in this city often fails to note that by law the city government of New York City must balance its budget every year or else we fall under the control of the Financial Control Board,” said de Blasio. “That’s never happened in our history.”
A year earlier, de Blasio appeared before the same group to propose increasing taxes on New Yorkers earning more than $500,000 a year to fund universal pre-K and after-school programs.
Joe Lhota, de Blasio’s Republican opponent, called his fiscal conversion a joke.
“I hurt myself laughing about it,” Lhota said.
“Bill de Blasio will say anything and pander. He’s not a fiscal conservative. He has raised fees, taxes, spending of the city of New York like a drunken sailor would.”
Additional reporting by Yoav Gonen