Bloomberg's Waterboarding

As Azi points out yesterday, the mayor is waterboarding the council critics of the proposed rate hikes on water use: "Bloomberg told reporters at a press conference in Brooklyn that "you’re going to pay for the city services whether you pay them in fees or whether you pay them in taxes. D.E.P. [Department of Environmental Protection, which operates the water and sewer systems] uses city services; traditionally we have billed them for that and they pay [for] that. And if they didn’t buy it from us, the city, they’d have to buy it from the private sector and, presumably, it would even cost more.”

Same old, same old, from Mr. Big Government enabler. Bloomberg, of course, elides the very real issue of DEP incompetence; and since the mayor has never bothered with the need to make government more efficient he hasn't even given a glance at an agency that simply can't estimate any one's water bill with even a simulacrum of accuracy.

If he did, old Emily Lloyd would have followed Commissioner Lancaster out the door and her imitation of Harold Lloyd would have been put mercifully to an end. Instead, the majestic mayor takes umbrage at the criticism and, what else, lashes out at the critics: "He added, “This seems to be a brouhaha about nothing from a couple of people who want to run for higher office who probably shouldn't’t even be considered.”

No it isn't Mike, and might we add that absent $180 million no one would have considered you; a nice thought to have when considering the degree of over-ratedness that hangs like a miasma around the mayor's mien. A quote from a Jim Gennaro aide-one of those nettlesome critics-is worth citing: “I wouldn’t call a regressive backdoor tax burdening working class New Yorkers a quote, ‘brouhaha' over nothing. The mayor should use his power to fix this problem instead of politicizing a real cost-of-living issue.”

But then again, this would mean that Big Mike would have to care about the average tax payer; something there's scant evidence of over the past six and a half years. The countdown clock's ticking on this rich dilettante, and we're quite happy to anticipate the celebration of his exit.