Daily News on Taxes and the Mayor

In yesterday's Daily News editorial on the mayor's second term we were slightly bemused to read, as part of a "Go Mayor!" exhortation, that the mayor should continue to deliver "sound fiscal management that doesn't break the back of taxpayers." Are these folks for real?

This is a mayor who socked it to every single neighborhood business with his commercial real estate tax increase in 2002 (in a city that has already been designated one of the highest taxed and least business-friendly in the country). What's ludicrous in this shameless toadying is the fact that there is no suggestion by the News that the mayor should begin to attempt to make NYC a better place to do business.

This is, after all, the same Daily News that railed against the mayor's first term "ticket blitz." Now, however, the paper's euphoria seems to have generated an amnesia that ill suits the prospects for the News to provide the kind of checks on mayoral excess that rightly belongs to the Fourth Estate.

Of course our disappointment is more appropriately reserved for Mike Bloomberg who, in 19 soporific minutes, had absolutely nothing to say about making the city a more business-friendly environment. Of course, he was equally as mute about any plans to help small businesses but, given his track record, maybe "benign neglect" is the best we can hope for.

Make no mistake about it, the next four years are going to be a major challenge for the entrepreneurs who are struggling in the city's diverse neighborhoods. The mayor, in spite of his own meteoric rags to riches rise, simply has no genuine concern for the little guy. This is exacerbated by the man in charge of the city's economic development policy, Deputy Dan.

What the Alliance hopes is that there are enough council members who understand that the city's economic strength lies with its immigrant entrepreneurs and the continued vibrancy of neighborhood business. It certainly is not going to come from DD and the "Let's Make a Deal" folks over at EDC.