Taxing the wealthy to fund pre-K programs won’t help to close the gap between the city’s rich and poor, Republican mayoral nominee Joe Lhota said on Sunday.
Trashing one of his presumptive rival’s signature campaign themes, Lhota said Bill de Blasio’s school-financing solution is shortsighted.
“That’s not going to do one bloody thing to solve income inequity,” Lhota told WABC-TV’s “Up Close.” “Preschool programs, though, are absolutely needed. The difference between Bill and I is he wants to raise money through taxes.”
Lhota also said he would replace Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott.
“I will select my own chancellor,” he said in the TV interview. “I want somebody who has teaching ability and teaching skills in their background.
“I want somebody who has been in a classroom, combined with the fact they have good management skills.”
Meanwhile, like de Blasio and the last remaining Democratic primary challenger, Bill Thompson, Lhota spent the day walking parade routes. He marched in the Mexican Day Parade along Madison Avenue and hit the Great Irish Fair in Coney Island.
Lhota, a former chairman of the MTA and a deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani, also weighed in on the spat between de Blasio and Mayor Bloomberg.
Lhota said Bloomberg was wrong to say de Blasio was running a “racist campaign” for using his multiracial family in campaign ads.
“I thought the mayor’s words were quite insensitive,” the GOP nominee said. “What I do think Bill de Blasio is doing, however, is he’s trying to divide the city. He’s using class warfare.”