The Labor Department reports that New York City’s unemployment rate is nearly 10 percent, but that’s not a surprise. Given government’s big feet and heavy hands, the surprise is that more employers aren’t running for the exits.
The free market faces extinction in Gotham. Everybody, from unions to large firms, demands a handout, and most get one. As for taxpayers, with politicians all claiming to be on their side, they can be forgiven if they resent the “help.”
Mayor Bloomberg believes in a pro-growth, pro-work agenda, which he explained last week in vetoing a pernicious piece of legislation and promising the same for another. One would require landlords to pay workers the “prevailing wage” when the city is their tenant. The other would require firms getting $1 million in subsidies to pay workers at least $10 an hour, a so-called “living wage.”
“When it comes to creating jobs, government is not the architect of the economy — that’s the private sector’s job,” Bloomberg said. Beyond a minimum wage, “private businesses should be free to make their own decisions,” he said, adding that the bills “would create a tiered minimum wage that would favor some businesses over others — and some industries over others.”
He’s right — but Council Speaker Christine Quinn, vying to succeed Bloomberg, was not without ammunition in defending the measures, saying: “If a business isn’t looking for taxpayer dollars, they’re under no obligation to meet these requirements.”
Then she nailed the mayor for violating his own principles. “The mayor has argued that these bills would interfere with the free market,” she said. “In fact, that is precisely what the city’s development-incentive program is designed to do — to alter the market to favor businesses that provide a public benefit by creating jobs in New York City.”
Noting that Bloomberg had doled out $250 million to favor-seeking businesses this year alone, she said the bills would “ensure that taxpayer investment is going to subsidize jobs that pay a reasonable wage.”
She also pointed out that Bloomberg had signed other wage agreements covering unions and private developers at Yankee Stadium and Citi Field. Touché.
Bloomberg and Quinn, it is clear, differ only by degrees in their views on taxpayer subsidies. He’s a Big Government Capitalist, and she is a bigger one.
Both are hooked on seeing private job growth, and middle-class incomes, as dependent on subsidies. Never mind that every subsidy spawns an army of lobbyists seeking favors and amounts to an extra tax on all other payers.
That dynamic drives the high costs of living and working in New York, which City Hall responds to by increasing the pool of subsidies, and hiking taxes even more to pay for them. It is a ruinous cycle, and 10 percent unemployment is the proof.
If that were all, it would be enough. But the standoff wasn’t the only example of government’s role in depressing the labor market. In a weird case, a leading New York builder was hit with federal fraud charges.
Bovis Lend Lease admitted it inflated bills on major jobs, and will pay $50 million in fines and restitution. One of its execs pleaded guilty to a criminal charge.
Headlines screamed “scam,” and they were right — for the wrong reason. The true scam is that the people who benefitted from the rip-offs are getting away scot free.
Bovis, prosecutors concede, didn’t profit from the overcharges. Rather, union workers did by getting paid for overtime when they weren’t working.
And minority-owned firms, required by law to be hired, got as much as $25 million, even though Bovis ended up doing the firms’ work with its employees.
Those two factors, padding overtime and filling government quotas, account for nearly all the inflated bills. Both are routine fixtures on the construction landscape.
Talk to any developer and you will hear tales of these and other shakedowns. They are, one developer said, endemic; yet no prosecutor, mayor or governor dares expose them. They find it easier just to dole out the cash and slather on the mandates, like so much grease for the squeaky wheels.
Government is here to help, the old joke goes. Much more help of the kind it’s getting and New York will grind to a halt.
Desperate prez demeaning the office
It is fashionable to be jaded about a presidential campaign, to complain there’s nothing new and tune it out. Not this one. Watch it, or you’ll miss the antics of an incumbent who has no scruples and no regard for the majesty of his office.
President Obama’s team put out an ad praising him for sending in Navy SEALs to kill Osama bin Laden and doubting whether Mitt Romney would have done it. To further exploit the one-year anniversary, he gave an interview to NBC in the Situation Room, from where he observed the raid. And The Wall Street Journal revealed that the Obama campaign has an enemies list, a group of Romney donors it singles out by name on a Web site while declaring some got rich “at the expense of so many Americans.”
As outrageous as those breaches of decency are, they are merely the latest extension of Obama’s polarizing presidency. His tenure threatened, he is growing desperate, almost pathologically so. And it’s only April.
Where once it was rare for a politician or a commentator to accuse a president of lying, it happens routinely now. Obama’s speeches are filled with distortions and fabrications. Even members of his own party don’t trust him, regarding him as ruthlessly selfish. “An uncurious man,” said one.
House Speaker John Boehner called the president’s use of Air Force One for campaign events disguised as official business “pathetic” and added: “This is the biggest job in the world, and I’ve never seen a president make it smaller.”
It is a train wreck for America, unfolding before our eyes. Sad to say, but it makes me nostalgic for the days of Bill Clinton, when it was only sex that shamed the Oval Office.
Told you so, pal
Years ago, I got an e-mail from a man taking exception to my criticism of John Edwards. The writer was a longtime friend of Edwards, and said America would be lucky to have him as president.
The poor sucker wasn’t alone. Edwards was the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2004 and a contender in 2008.
That near miss is as hard to believe as the trashy truth that oozes out at his trial.
So when government gives you the blues, just imagine the dream team of Edwards as president, Eliot Spitzer as governor and Anthony Weiner as mayor.
There, feel better?
$hellin’ out for Michelle
So, Michelle Obama’s trip to Spain two years ago cost taxpayers nearly $500,000. And that’s just one of her 16 vacations as first lady.
She may not be proud of America, but she damn well better be grateful.
No newt is good newt
How strange is Newt Gingrich? He said he would reassess his position after the Delaware primary, which he lost by 30 points. Aides said he was quitting — though not just yet.
Maybe soon. Maybe never.