Bloomberg is making cuts across the board in NYC and raising taxes.
From http://wcbstv.com/breakingnewsalerts/nyc.budget.mayor.2.921808.html:
The only way to fix it, sources tell CBS 2 HD, is with:
* $1 billion in program cuts, affecting virtually every city agency.
* New taxes and fees, including more taxes on clothing, a fee for plastic shopping bags in grocery stores and higher fees for lots of other city services.
* The capital budget will be slashed.
* City employees will be asked to pay part of their healthcare costs.
* There will be a reduction of 23,000 jobs through layoffs and attrition. That's more than 7 percent of the city's employees.
Sources say expect fewer cops, firefighters and sanitation workers.
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has already said he could be forced to eliminate 15,000 education jobs, one third by attrition. The federal stimulus package could save some of the teaching jobs.
"New York will get about $1.8 billion in education funding and that may not eliminate the need for cuts but it should make it much less severe," Sen. Charles Schumer said.
They should have done this in the good times. The article continues:
Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler said: "The mayor is cutting agency spending as much as he can without compromising our quality of life. But in order to close the deficit without destroying the core services New Yorkers rely on, the mayor will need help from all our partners, from the municipal unions to the leadership in both the state and nation's capital. We all have to do our part to get through these tough times."
Compromising quality of life? I pay the highest taxes and live in a shoe-box built in 1910 that is barely habitable. When I get on the subway, there are bums urinating all over it. This isn't "quality of life", this is 3rd world living in America. The least they could do is tax me less, cut all the welfare programs, and get rid of all these housing projects that are a total blight on the city.
NYC is the closest approximation in the US to living in the slums of India. Slumdog Millionaire could have been filmed in Queens. They probably could've found enough Indians in Queens alone to make it look convincing enough to seem as if it were Calcutta.
What this Deputy Mayor is really saying is that "quality of life" for government employees won't be maintained. No more lush benefits for mentally challenged public school teachers and no more full retirement benefits for traffic cops.
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