Freshly-minted GOP mayoral nominee Joe Lhota previewed possible attack lines against Democratic rival Bill deBlasio Thursday — and fighting higher taxes was high up on the list.
“His knee jerk response to any new program is to raise taxes,” Lhota said on “Good Day New York.” He’s looking for $500 million. To me that’s a lot of money.
But for the city budget –it’s a $70 billion budget — its less than one percent of the entire budget. What he’s basically saying is `I’m not going to look for any efficiencies in the government. I’m going to grab more money from the public for the programs I want.’ That’s instinctively wrong.”
deBlasio has proposed raising taxes on the rich to raise an extra $500 million to fund more pre-K classes.
Despite saying he agrees with Mayor Bloomberg about 85 percent of time, Lhota took pains to explain his style would be different.
For one thing, he said he’d re-start the town hall meetings that Bloomberg has largely abandoned.
“Mayors need to be out there,” said Lhota, adding that “people all around the city feel disenfranchised right now that no one at City Hall seems to be listening to them.”
Lhota also said he would add a new Golden Rule at City Hall, which has had strained relations with the teachers’ union under Bloomberg:
“Never bash teachers — we need them in the classroom,” Lhota declared.