A week after his Democratic rival told influential business leaders that he is a “fiscal conservative,” Republican Joe Lhota went before the same audience to claim the mantle for himself.
The difference was Lhota meant it.
“My name is Joe Lhota and I am a fiscal conservative … not to be confused with other speakers who have been here,” the former deputy mayor said to chuckles.
On Friday, Democrat Bill de Blasio startled a large crowd at an Association for a Better New York breakfast by invoking his fiscally conservative credentials, despite his plans to tax the wealthy. He soon backed away from the term, and instead insisted he was a “fiscally responsible progressive.”
In his speech Tuesday, Lhota went after de Blasiol with vigor – saying that his plans for jobs, education and policing would “hurt the very people that he wants to help.”
Lhota said when it comes to education he’s more progressive than de Blasio, explaining that he wants to double the number of charter schools while de Blasio wants to charge some charters rent to use public buildings.
“Bill is beholden solely to the needs of the teachers union and there’s nothing progressive about what they want,” Lhota told reporters later.
Lhota has also said he wants to cut property taxes and use tax incentives to lure more high-paying tech jobs.
During his address, Lhota pointed out that he was raised by teenage parents who lived paycheck-to-paycheck as the young family tried to make ends meet in the Bronx. His father went on to become an NYPD officer. Lhota became the first in his family to go to college with the help of a police union scholarship.
“If he wants to go toe-to-toe with me on inequality, if he wants to go toe-to-toe with me on affordability, or about understanding how to make ends meet, I welcome it,” Lhota said, adding that his dad had three jobs and his mom had two. “I’ve lived it, and I’m the only candidate in this race with the experience to take it on.”
“I didn’t go to an elite primary school in Cambridge, I went to a public school in the Bronx, where we always rooted for the Yankees,” Lhota said, referring to a special pilot school de Blasio attended in Massachusetts, where he was raised.
While Lhota received a polite reception, the crowd was about half the size of the one that attended Friday’s speech by de Blasio, who is 50 points ahead in the polls.