NYC DSAer Chris Maisano reports on a number of actions against Mayor Bloomberg’s austerity budget that have taken place in the last week, including the ongoing, 24/7 “Bloombergville” protest encampment against the cuts.
Even in an age of widespread austerity, New York City Mayor Michael M. Bloomberg’s FY2012 executive budget proposal is breathtaking in its depraved ambition. If adopted in its current form, Bloomberg’s $65.7 billion proposal would cut hundreds of millions in spending from last year’s budget and destroy core public services like education, the fire department, and public libraries. Over 4,000 teachers would lose their jobs. 20 fire houses would be shuttered. 40 public library branches would be forced to close their doors – and this brief but dismal catalog does not begin to capture the devastation this budget would leave in its wake. All told, the mayor’s executive budget would eliminate almost 10,000 public sector jobs in New York City. The Bloomberg administration’s standard rhetorical maneuver is to deflect responsibility for the savagery of its budget proposal onto the state legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo in Albany. To be sure, these parties share a significant degree of responsibility for the dire situation confronting New York City, especially when they have killed the millionaires’ tax and capped property tax rates at an absurdly low rate, sources of revenue that could potentially have been used to help plug the city’s budget gap and fund public services.
Still, the “common sense” notion that there is “no money” to adequately fund public services is little more than a smokescreen for Bloomberg’s budget bloodbath. There is plenty of money to be found in New York City. This week, DC37 – the city’s largest union of public employees (full disclosure: I am a member) – released a report finding that New York City could generate close to $850 million in revenue by collecting over $500 million in uncollected taxes and saving $300 million by cutting spending on outside contracting with non-union firms. Outside contracting costs the city more than it would spend by employing unionized workers to do the same jobs, and has provided shady operators with the opportunity to eat their fill from the public trough. In the most egregious example of corruption in outside contracting, the contractor awarded the job of creating a new municipal payroll system called CityTime has been accused of defrauding the city of $80 million since 2005. The city is also sitting on a $3.2 billion surplus that it could use to fill the gaps. There’s no question that the money is out there for the taking, and that not a single layoff or service cut needs to take place. What’s in question is whether public sector workers, students, and the millions of New Yorkers whose core public services are under attack can generate a fightback powerful enough to stop the drive to austerity and force the city to tap into these alternative sources of revenue.
Read the rest at The Activist, the blog of Young Democratic Socialists.
