taboo topic

Ok, my mom always said not to talk politics or religion. But I have to ask...why is everyone solely blaming Bloomberg for cutting services (firehouses etc.)? It doesn't make sense to me.

People are comparing him to Giuliani and saying he's failing, but our former mayor was very lucky. Our economy was booming, we had a president who was using tax money to provide services and to provide the states and cities with funds. Even when the economy started to dip, NYC was getting money pouring in from donations, and promises of money from the government (which Bush has renigged for the most part), so the city kept paying people and had a little money to provide services.

Now, we have a president who has cut taxes, cut funding for services, cut funding to the states...and a governor who's decided recently to do the same. It's easy to have lots of firemen and police when there's money to pay them. BUT-there is no money!
Our president is dead set and offering corporate payouts, but he won't give a dime to the states so that they can keep running properly.

The same people who complain are often the people who complain about taxes. This is what tax cuts and lots of investing in fancy atomic bombs do. When the government has no money, it can't pay for services and it has to close things and lay people off. You can't have something for nothing I guess. It's great to have tax cuts, but you don't think it's too beneficial when you don't have a job or when inflation rates skyrocket because of it.

So, why are people blaming Bloomberg? He's trying to get us out of debt, b/c otherwise we will end up like the seventies again. What is he supposed to do? He only has a few places he can cut funding, and he's cutting each area a little across the board, he's not favoring one over the other.

Just curious, maybe there is something I'm missing.

Edited to add: Sorry about the soapbox

Because Bloomberg is running the city like a company. You cant just cut things like police and fireman because they 'cost money' like you cut expenses in a company. A fireman or policeman is NOT something that I want to see cut form the biggest city in the world. There has to be something else that Bloomberg can do rather than cut them!!

IMO and this is solely MY OPINION and I am trying to say this without hurting or offending anyone so I do appologize in advance.

We need to blame someone. Its our city and we see the mayor getting up and saying he's closing firehouses, he's eliminating teacher's aids, he's cutting back sanitation, he's the one who raised cigarette taxes, he's the one who put the ban on smoking.

So for us it seems like it is him

What we dont see is, he in his office getting piles of paperwork, phone calls and doing what he can to try and save us. we see the negative and not the positive.

Now that the economy is doing bad all we see is the mayor on the news and what else is being cut. We dont see our president getting on the news saying 'ok NY is going to lose 3500 jobs' but if we did we would probably blame him.

Its the person doing the cuts and thats why we are blaming him.

Because our politicians need to stop cutting from things like firemen, police and education. They need to cut administrators and their perks! Putting human lives ,the welfare of others and the education of our future generations on the chopping block is stupid.

I am not just blaming Bloomberg. I don't like him! I also have a HUGE problem with Pataki and our senators. They are not fighting to get us the money that we deserve.

Yes, Guliani was lucky and prior to 9/11 he was not that well liked either by many. But he fought for our city. I respect that about him. D' Amato, he may have been horrible about many things, but that man brought money into NY. He got what we needed from Washington. What are Schumer and Clinton doing for us?

I personally would like to see some of these people do without the same way they expect us and our children to do without.

Swags very good point

I am so tired of seeing them in the papers attending some gala, reading to school children, ribbon cuttings, etc...I want to see them petitioning to congress and getting us money. I am sure its a lot harder then it may really be, but I would rather see them tying then acting.

Exactly what Lisa Rose said. Bloomberg is running the city as it was a company. Yes the ecomony is bad and our budget needs to be reduced but by cutting the police and firefighters or cutting school fundings isn't the answer.

He is the Mayor of our city and doesn't give a crap about the average person. When we were suppose to have a transit strike his answer to everyone was to bike to work...HELLO is that feasible. Sure he can bike to work because he had 20 cops surrounding him to make sure nothing happens but do I? No.

He should be fighting with every breath he has to get more money from the federal government and give people incentives to work and spend money in the city. Instead he wants a commuter tax reinstated. If he does that he'll be losing workers in the city because it'll be more beneficial to work on the Island. What is he doing with the extra money the city is getting from the MTA raises? I know for a fact that the city gets some so why doesn't he use that money for a good use?

I worked with Mr. Bloomberg at his company and the employees their thought he was a god. Well maybe he was in the business world but he has alot to learn in the political world and its the average person paying the price for his learning curve.

Just my opinion of course : )

People are blaming Bloomberg b/c he is approaching this city like it's a private business. $8mn is a drop in the bucket....what's the deficit? Billions!

The city is at 'Code Orange' alert and he's messing with the infrastructure of the emergency personnel? What's next?

BTW, millions in private funds have been donated in an effort to keep these firehouses open. Guess what? Bloomberg says it has to go into a 'community pool' of money and can't be specifically used for that purpose.

Elizabeth: 'BTW, millions in private funds have been donated in an effort to keep these firehouses open. Guess what? Bloomberg says it has to go into a 'community pool' of money and can't be specifically used for that purpose.'

ARE YOU SERIOUS!! OMG

If private funds have been donating in an effort to keep the houses open why would they go to a community pool. Arent these private funds solely for the purpose of the firehouses???

HOlY MOLY!! That I didnt know....

wow, this is a lively debate

I guess what I'm wondering is, what would you like him to cut? He's already cutting the govt. employees and their 'perks' (city employees don't get paid a whole lot). He donates about 100x his salary to charities in the city every year (he can't donate directly to the city-it would be unethical and I think illegal).

Our senators are scared to death, and they make me sick too by the way, but they are spineless and scared to say anything bad about Bush. People are so 'patriotic' nowadays that they attack anyone who says anything bad about Bush, the tax cuts or the money we're wasting on fancy bombs. Bush even had them sign a commendation of the troops, but slipped himself in there as well, as a government bill! Why is our Congress spending time with that crap...but he did it so he could say, look everyone supports me or say 'look at that person who didn't sign it, they don't support the troops'.

Anyway, what realistic option does Bloomberg have when we're in billions of dollars of debt? What would you do...I don't know what I'd do...

Oh, and I could bike to work if I wasn't so darn lazy:)

Oh, and I don't know if I'd use public funds to keep them open either, not b/c I'm a jerk but because a few million won't keep them all open-so how do you decide which ones to cut. To pay 10 firefighters for a year is about $400k, then there are maintenence costs for the houses, supplies, healthcare. So that's about 1 firehouse for a year per million.

I think they should start a charity to save the firehouses and more policeman in the force and he should be the first to donate to that.

Their are so many things being cut, (public broadcasting shows, after school programs, i think summer programs, teachers aids, firehouse closings, police academy being cancelled, sanitation being cut, etc..) that I can see its hard to say ok this program gets cut and these taxes go up, but it just seems no matter what he does to save the city it just seems like its not really helping.

Honestly I do not know what I would want Bloomberg to cut. I don't know enough about the budgets and different agencies within the City to make an educated answer, but the city will always be in debt. He will not change that and now is not the time to be cutting agencies that benefit our children or the safety of the people of NY.

Maybe he needs to target the corporations more. I know my company just got finded 1.3 billion dollars to the SEC for bad trading. Where is that money going to??

I say we all rally to elect a new president so we get some money to our city! PLEASE! I live here and I don't want it to go to hell, and I don't believe that there is a mayor out there who could save it right now, not even Giuliani. We need money from the federal government, and with the tax cuts and bomb spending we're not going to get it!

MichelleW had posted in a different thread about the operation of firemen with a fire. The men go in first to vent the area and look for people before spraying water. Now if the LIC firehouse is closed, and there is a fire 2 blocks from the firehouse (god for bid) and the next firehouse is 5 - 10 minutes away and someone is trapped inside, not only does that person have to wait 5 - 10 minutes for the fire crew to show up, but they also have to wait for the firemen to get inside to find them. By that time the individual could have smoke inhalataion or worse.

I just think closing a firehouse puts a lot of people's lives in great danger.

Karen,
Our city was not in debt during the 90s. When we're not experiencing an economic downturn the city does fine, when we are we don't do fine. Also, if we targeted companies solely (they are already targeted to some extent) they wouldn't stay in the city and we wouldn't have jobs....

I just don't know what the answer is, except to raise taxes a little so that we each pay a few hundred more a year and increase revenue a few hundred billion dollars. Bloomberg is working on that, but he's only able to make up some of what Bush has taken away It makes me sad....
Unfortunately 1 billion and change won't help, it goes to pay our deficit (we owe billions to creditors already).

I really don't think that getting a new president will help the city much....I don't beleive Clinton did much to help the city besides buying a house so his wife can become a resident and become senator then sell it when she got elected.

When I said cut people I meant some of these administrators . I think some money could be saved by losing a few 'deputy' mayors. I was in no way talking about the average worker. My mother works for CPS so trust me I know how little they make.

I agree with you about Bush! I do not feel unpatriotic saying it but the man has to face what is going on in his own country too and he is not doing that.

I agree Julybride...there are no easy answers and its very disheartening to see a fine city like ours suffer.

At least under Clinton the state got money (billions each year) from the Federal Government, much of this comes to the city. Those cuts under Bush are what is really hurting us!

Also, when we had an emergency Clinton would give us money, because the government had it. Under Bush, who spent our surplus in 2.5 months (which we got under Clinton-we were in debt under Bush's father too), there is no money to give. In fact, he promised the city billions after 9/11, and we didn't even get 1/3 of it.

Now, he's cutting taxes further and there's even less to give.

Swags,

My old company has more directors than that! That's not a lot of directors (no matter what they're called) and I know that they don't make nearly what they are worth