Mo' Money Mo' Money

Today's NY Times reports on the mayor's blast against the state legislature for its "failure" to forward the $6 billion that Judge DeGrasse had opined the city schools needed under the fiscal equity lawsuit. This time, however, Bloomberg managed to also take a pot shot at Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver by announcing that, because of Albany's failure, plans to construct a new elementary school in the Speaker's district would (perhaps) have to be delayed.

Mr. Silver, apparently not intimidated by the threat, responded by accusing the mayor of "reneging on a commitment seemingly made only to further his bid for re-election." To paraphrase Clint Eastwood, perhaps the mayor shouldn't be making threats that his body can't cash. He has now threatened both the speaker and the senate majority leader and for the life of us we can't see what we expects to accomplish with his bombast.

In fact, as far as the state senate goes his threats have (to use Dirty Harry once again) a "make my day" quality and should serve to strengthen Joe Bruno's hand with his upstate and suburban constituencies. Which is precisely the point that David Shaffer makes in today's NY Post. In fact he calls Bloomberg's attack "Mike's GOP Gift."

There is of course no great eagerness in other parts of the state to fund a NYC school system that has historically been, despite the high levels of funding, a colossal failure, a point that is driven home by today's point about the city's high schools reported by the NY Sun. What this all points out is that the mayor is a classic liberal in the mold of John Lindsay. Nowhere do we see any recognition of the dangers inherent in high taxes, restrictive regulations, and big government.