City Council Speaker and mayoral candidate Christine Quinn portrays herself as a hard-nosed politician who gets things done. Her opponents paint her as a Bloomberg stooge who wants to perpetuate the mayor's vision for turning New York City into a "luxury product." The Daily News' endorsement of Quinn in today's paper plays right into the hands of her critics, saying she's the right candidate to "preserve the status quo" in a city where the spoils have been reserved for those of a rarified status.
The Daily News drops Bloomberg's name six times before they even mention their favored candidate.
The Bloomberg era will end with crime lower than it has ever been, employment at a record level, neighborhoods reborn, the schools rescued from a culture of failure and an economy enlivened by cutting-edge high-tech enterprises. The streets are clean, the parks are in good shape and New Yorkers are living to riper, older ages.
Slow down, Mort! As my Shakespeare 254 TA would say, let's "unpack" this.
The Bloomberg era will end with crime lower than it has ever been
True, but at what cost to our Constitution and our coffers? Also, this is the same police department that has systematic problems with fudging crime statistics. Guess who has been vehemently fighting measures to bring more accountability to the NYPD?
employment at a record level,
It's also true that the City added a record amount of jobs in June, but take a look at the average unemployment rate when Bloomberg took office: 8%. 2012's average: 9%. Last month it was 8.7%, while the national average was 7.4%.
More people have been moving to New York in search of work, which bumps up the unemployment rate. But the jobs they are finding are low-wage retail and tourism-related. They don't pay the bills, and they certainly don't carry benefits. These low-paying jobs are subsidized by hundreds of millions of our tax dollars.
neighborhoods reborn
When you're working a low-paying job without benefits, it's tough to remain in your neighborhood after it's "reborn." So the poor—there are 1.7 million of them here in New York City—are shoved to the margins, continuing a trend that has pervaded Bloomberg's three terms in office.
the schools rescued from the culture of failure
I'm not sure what this means but here's a headline from The Daily News on August 7, 2013: "City students' test scores take dramatic plunge on new standardized tests."
an economy enlivened by cutting-edge, high tech enterprises
Remember when Yahoo and Spotify and BuzzFeed and ______ all banded together to make sure that people who applied for affordable housing didn't have to make more than the city's median income, $56,000? Or when they prevented New York from descending into rates of record-high homelessness? Oh, really? That didn't happen?
The streets are clean, the parks are in good shape and New Yorkers are living to riper, older ages.
Who can afford to live to be 71 in New York City? Ah.
