Bloomberg, Sic Transit Gloria

Mike Bloomberg has been busy-at least his campaign's economic stimulus plan for NYC has been-inundating voters with fatuous ads on his grandiose plans for mass transit improvements-much of them outside of his purview to attain, but, what the hell, it's only a campaign promise. Now, however, taking time away from his day dreaming, he has lashed out against an arbitration award that will leave transit workers flush-and the MTA further in the hole: "Bloomberg railed against the raises. "The straphangers of today are going to pay for this increase," he said."

What was lost in all of the mayor's faux outrage was Mike's own culpability-it seems that the arbitrator simply adopted the TWU's argument that the transit worker raises should mimic those of city workers; the same employees that Bloomberg has been so generous with. As the NY Post underscores: "Mayor Bloomberg was pretty steamed in anticipation of an arbitration panel's award of 11-percent pay hikes to transit workers -- asserting that "straphangers don't have the ability to pay more." But you can bet they'll be digging a little deeper to fund it. And trains will be dirtier and less safe. Fact is, though, Bloomberg has no room to complain -- given that his overly generous contracts with municipal employees underlie the binding-arbitration award announced yesterday by a state Public Employment Relations Board panel."

What the Post highlights, is just how Mike Bloomberg-screaming like the cuckolded husband-is complicit in the lavish benefits that transit workers will be receiving courtesy of the already beleaguered public authority; and the straphangers, of course. Bloomberg has been as profligate as any mayor since John Lindsay taxed and spent the city into foreclosure; and now he wants to be re-elected in some kind of paean to his recognized fiscal acumen?

Here's the hard facts about the foolishly generous Mike Bloomberg-someone who has the nerve to go on Meet the Press and advise the president about how it's okay to raise taxes even though he promised he wouldn't: "Further undercutting Bloomberg's position are the raises he passed out to nearly 7,000 non-unionized city employees just last month -- averaging some 8 percent, for a total of nearly $70 million, when the city is facing ruinous budget deficits."

Mike Bloomberg has forfeited the right to advise anyone-whether its the president or the MTA. Absent his bottomless personal money pit, voters would be poised to run him out on the very same expensive rails that are going to cost even more because of the poor fiscal role model that this mayor has been. The city's new transit plan should be a bus ticket out of town for Mike Bloomberg.