NYC General Discussion - You Hear That Giant Sucking Sound?

[traininthedistance]

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(Bolding mine.)

Uh, sure.  Certainly looks to me like "impugning his personal or professional integrity" is kind of what this whole article is about.

I've never seen a politician burn their bridges so quickly. He's negative in approval rating three months in, digging a deeper hole every day, and has pissed off the Governor from his own party.

To be fair, Cuomo is hardly a Democrat.

[traininthedistance]

That's really more a statement of how the Democratic party has lurched far to the left in recent years. Cuomo is a perfectly normal centrist Democrat butting heads with a Mayor who is essentially a Democratic Socialist.

Hell, he's even stopped fracking from going forward by delaying it indefinitely.

A "normal centrist Democrat" wouldn't have gone out of his way to side with Senate Republicans during redistricting, or Chris Christie recently, over his own party.

You have no idea how much I'd prefer it if Cuomo actually was a "normal centrist Democrat".

As for de Blasio, I'm pretty sure that his rhetoric is way fierier than his ideology.  He's doing a lot of leftish special interest pandering- the carriage thing being an example of something I'm happy to agree is super dumb- but seems to me it's mostly just that.

[traininthedistance]

The gross inequity in parks funding is a real issue, and one which materially harms poorer and outer-borough New Yorkers, even if one were to accept the argument that Central and Prospect Parks deserve more money because they bring in tourists.  I suspect that this particular approach won't pass legal muster, but I do support efforts to try focus more attention on the smaller and more outlying neighborhood parks.  I'd start with a PR blitz to try and get people to shift their donations to the smaller parks, as well as moving the Parks Dept. operating budget in that direction.

(Also, this is a great example of how and why private charity is a pisspoor substitute for public spending.)

[traininthedistance]

New York’s Welfare Reactionaries
Mayor de Blasio and his HRA chief look to turn back the clock on 20 years of progress.

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http://www.city-journal.org/2014/eon0521hm.html

How could anyone be opposed to the bolded part?  We're okay with throwing up even more barriers to poor people getting an education?  Perhaps we could have a discussion about the other details... but it's hypocritical (especially for the "opportunity society" folks) and almost feudal to be opposed to that law, I think. 

Also, shame on Bloomberg.  That's really disappointing that he was opposed to it.

[traininthedistance]

Robert Doar, the head of NYC's welfare agency under Bloomberg, wrote here about the policies the agency implemented. 

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Even if that's true as a general rule, it's really sh*tty to assume that it's "right" for everyone and thus de facto close off the opportunity for upward mobility.

And, Ernest, I think that "not starving" is the sort of basic human right that shouldn't come with strings attached, at least in a society that is as advanced and wealthy as the USA, so I don't really agree with the first underlined part.  I'm not necessarily opposed to setting other sorts of conditions for other transfer payments, but food is just too basic, and just too affordable to provide.

[traininthedistance]

And, Ernest, I think that "not starving" is the sort of basic human right that shouldn't come with strings attached, at least in a society that is as advanced and wealthy as the USA, so I don't really agree with the first underlined part.  I'm not necessarily opposed to setting other sorts of conditions for other transfer payments, but food is just too basic, and just too affordable to provide.

Moreover, means testing is poor public policy in general.

Really Xahar? Please elaborate.

Al's quote right above yours, while pithy, actually explains it pretty well.  The issue (well, one of the major issues) is that means-tested policies run the danger of people who aren't eligible for them not caring about them, and therefore supporting endless cuts and/or letting them become inefficient and degrading.  Whereas broad-based programs like Social Security remain more politically durable, as well as relatively efficient and generous because everyone, even the wealthy, have a stake in its success.

Now, I actually take a somewhat "middle" tack here (which is of course still to the left of America's center of gravity): sometimes resource constraints and countervailing concerns combine to make means-testing a necessary evil.  For instance, a lot of places have programs to help subsidize low-income people's utility bills, and I'm fine with means-testing that because those who can afford it ought to feel an economic incentive to conserve and be efficient, and money to defray the cost of electrify and heat a fancy McMansion really would be better spent elsewhere.  But the pitfalls are real, and it's important to understand that there is actually a solid rationale behind the objection to just means-test everything beyond just slogans of "socialism".

[traininthedistance]

BUMP

So, an MTA bus driver hit a 15-year-old girl in Williamsburg, while she was walking with the light, in the crosswalk.  She, thankfully, will not lose her life (though IIRC nine pedestrians were killed by bus drivers last year, so it's not like nobody gets killed by bus drivers), but she will lose her leg.

The driver was given a desk appearance ticket (which is like a court summons, but wimpier) under the city's right-of-way law.  As is only just– people should not have to fear for their life while on their feet, and drivers (especially professional drivers!) have a responsibility to exercise due care, to not maim and kill.  

But tell that to the union head:

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Yep.  Caring about people not dying means you're a "phony progressive intellectual jackass", and hitting people is just the price of doing business, and OH NO they're gonna ask drivers to take extra care to get back at those dirty progressives.  (Shades of OH NO cops aren't going to give BS citations out after Garner, it's probably not as bad but the same basic idea holds.)

...

Ladies and gentlemen, the dark side of unions.  Hate to admit it but they need to shut up and get some humane priorities here.

[traininthedistance]

Yep, totally agree.  Manhattan needs a lot more density and needs modern office space to attract and keep global finance in the city.   There are a few offensive mega skyscrapers going up, like the residential tower near CPS.  But, Manhattan is full of skyscrapers.  It's not a big deal.

It seems to me that new signaling technology and new train cars is a no-brainer.  I sometimes use the C train and its cars were built in the mid 60s.  That's ridiculous. 

How do you pay for it and how do you get Cuomo to care about New York City?  That's tough.  I would be in favor of a few things.  A higher gas tax and more metered parking for sure.  I don't understand why there's so much free parking in NYC.  You should have to get a yearly pass to park in a specific neighborhood, which would also discourage all the people who live in New York full time but drive around with out of state plates.  And, then, maybe you put in tolls on the bridges over the East River.  Theoretically, you could also use that money to lower tolls on the Verrazano–Narrows Bridge and encourage truck traffic to avoid central Manhattan and Brooklyn.  Congestion pricing would be nice too.

Well too bad, all the money's going to Cuomo's gold-plated twice-as-wide-as-necessary Tappan Zee replacement instead.

Us city dwellers don't matter.

[traininthedistance]

Well, uh, all I can really say... is what a jerk. Are we supposed to wait until one of them collapses? If Cuomo is betting on Congress footing the bill, he's apparently forgotten that it's in the hands of those "Republican" people he likes beating up on.

FTFY.

F**k Cuomo of course.  Billions for a Tappan Zee bridge that could have easily been half as wide (and still had a fair bit of useful life in it), billions for a LaGuardia that might be a little dumpy but is totally functional, a middle finger for the piece of transit infrastructure that's actually most important to the region– and, especially after Sandy, most imperiled.  But it goes to New Jersey, and if you ride the train you're not a real person apparently.

We are all so doomed.

[traininthedistance]

Here's some required reading on this mess.

Toplessness is protected speech, there's no good reason to suppress it.  Also it's sexist as f**k that they're going after the desnudas but not the Naked Cowboy.

Also, (as you surely expected me to say) this is truly awful of DeBlasio.  At best he's a spineless panderer, at worst he is genuinely reactionary.  Given that he is so invested in going to the mat for his daily SUV-chauffeur-to-the-gym routine, and that Bratton has gone on record as wanting to "tear it out", I fear the worst.

Bloomberg nostalgia level rising.  The man, for all his reputation, and not to say that he was without his faults, was genuinely more progressive and perceptive than de Blasio on the issues that really matter.

[traininthedistance]

Toplessness is protected speech

Eh, maybe "protected speech" wasn't the exact right phrase, but it is most certainly legal:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/yes-ladies-you-can-walk-around-the-city-topless-6710067

Diaz's bill is at least not discriminatory, but it is unnecessary and useless prudery for the sake of prudery.

[traininthedistance]

Seriously though, can Bloomberg run? If not, give us Diana Taylor.

My ideal candidate would be someone like Antonio Reynoso or Brad Lander (who is superficially similar to DeBlasio but is plainly orders of magnitude better and more genuine on transit/infra issues).

[traininthedistance]

So I imagine the leading challenger would be Stringer now. Tell me, though, what would you think a de Blasio v Bloomberg election would look like? (NYC limits consecutive terms, so Bloomie could actually run again. I'd obviously love to see this happen, but I'm curious how others think it would play out. De Blasio's poll numbers, while on a downwards trend, don't seem poor enough to guarantee defeat.

I remember Tish James (I think?  Either her or Adams) retweeting something that floated her name as a potential de Blaz challenger in 2017.  I remember even back in 2013 lamenting that the Public Advocate race wasn't the top of the ticket, since both James and Squadron seemed better than de Blasio.

I could support the right de Blasio challenger– his problem is not where he stands on the political spectrum, but rather his reasons for standing where he does, as well as his general (in)competence in office.  One gets the sense that views policy as a series of checkboxes to satisfy interest groups rather than as any sort of coherent vision to make the city a better place.  And I liked a lot of what Bloomberg did but after twelve years there is some justified fatigue, and a need (both real and perceived) to hand governance to the next generation.

FWIW, I probably still had qualified support of de Blasio until he let Bratton threaten to rip out the TS plazas.  My disillusionment with Bill is very much not the same as the olds who want to bring back stop-and-frisk, and shouldn't be counted together when trying to gauge the viability of any particular challenger.