New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg invoked Detroit’s bankruptcy to recall the most populous U.S. city’s own brush with insolvency and warn its residents that they shouldn’t take the current fiscal well-being for granted.
Bloomberg, 71, said his 12 years in office helped generate a “virtuous circle” in which spending on schools, public safety and cultural amenities led to population growth, business investment,job creation and tax revenue gains. It can easily be undone, he said in prepared remarks for a speech today in Brooklyn.
Seven Democrats, three Republicans and at least two independents are vying to succeed Bloomberg, who leaves office Dec. 31. The mayor, in his speech, warned that a vicious circle may be created if municipal health and pension costs overtake the city’s capacity to maintain quality of life for New Yorkers. The result: population declines, followed by economic dislocation and the issues that pushed Detroit into insolvency – – and almost did the same to New York in the 1970s, he said.
“Short-sightedness, corruption, mismanagement and perhaps most dangerous of all, special-interest politics” may lead to a reprise of New York’s troubles of decades ago, Bloomberg said. “We saw all of those factors at work in Detroit — and in recent years, the most harmful factor may have been special-interest politics.”
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(Photo: Martin St-Amant – Wikipedia)
