As he prepares to enter his eighth year as New York’s top fiscal watchdog, City Comptroller William Thompson by now certainly should know better.
Actually, he does – which makes his blatant pander on taxes that much more embarrassing.
Thompson recently went after Mayor Bloomberg for the latter’s refusal to send out $400 property-tax rebate checks.
Mayor Mike says there’s simply not enough money in the ever-shrinking budget to afford the checks. But Thompson claims the mayor is overstating the problem: “The money is there,” he said. “It only requires creativity, thoughtfulness and a consideration that budget cuts should not disproportionately affect New Yorkers.”
Thompson’s idea of “creativity”?
Paying out the rebates from $2 billion that the mayor and the council agreed to apply to a deficit in next year’s budget.
So, the comptroller – elected to solve problems like these – is actively seeking to make next year’s deficit worse.
Sure, the rebates can’t be ignored. The City Council voted to write the checks.
But it’s not mandatory for Thompson to inject himself into the matter. And since he finds it necessary to do just that, why can’t he do it productively?
The full cost of the rebate checks is $256 million – no pittance, but no great shakes either in the context of the city’s $60 billion-plus budget.
Again, Thompson has been in charge of the city’s books for seven years. Surely he knows where to cut budgeted spending so as to fund the rebates.
After all, he only needs to find a little more than two-fifths of a percent of the overall budget.
Any proposed cut will likely anger important interest groups.
But it’s a more responsible way to pander to homeowners than swiping from next year’s budget.
Of course, Thompson could stop the pandering altogether and offer up some real leadership for a change.
How radical would that be?