We Live in an Age of Wonder, as in, I wonder what the hell they are thinking. Take Mayor de Blasio, who seems to believe that money grows on trees and that making grand pronouncements is the same as doing real things.
Twice in the last week, the mayor described his ideas as the political equivalent of the Second Coming. First with his deal with the teachers union, and now with his affordable-housing plan, de Blasio promises to drive a stake through the heart of inequality and make the city more affordable.
The local tab alone for his progressive vision is a whopping $13.6 billion, give or take. And where will that money come from? Open wide, dear taxpayer.
The mayor's approach hangs on a contradiction: The city can spend its way to prosperity, and the resulting tax hikes won't spoil the party. But unless he can suspend the laws of economics, or the requirement for a balanced budget, something's gotta give. Either his plans will collapse, or the city will go bankrupt trying to complete them.
Moreover, de Blasio is adding to the problems he claims to be solving. Government spending is a huge driver of the high cost of living in New York, and by increasing spending, his big ambitions are making the city less affordable for more people. The real trickle-down is that the cost of good intentions means higher prices punish those who can least afford them.
Indeed, the boomerang effect was clear on the day the mayor released his housing plan. He wants a rent freeze on rent-regulated apartments, but a report by a landlords' group showed that owners' costs rose 5.7 percent last year. The biggest contributor was a 5 percent hike in property taxes — meaning the government raised the cost of housing.
Property taxes are the chief source of revenue for the programs de Blasio wants to expand. To pay for that expansion, which includes the $5.5 billion teachers' contract, plus pensions, and the city's $8.1 billion contribution to his housing plan, the mayor will need to raise more tax money, and that will further drive up the cost of housing and everything else.
Consider that every bodega pays property taxes, and when they go up, the owner eats the added taxes, lays off workers or raises the price of beer and potato chips. Ditto for shoemakers, doctors, drugstores and offices — and apartment owners. They all pass along taxes to their customers, or they go out of business.
In an editorial calling de Blasio's housing plan a "Moon Shot," The New York Times credited his effort to subsidize more people by noting that rents climbed by 40 percent in the last 20 years. But government spending in the 12 Bloomberg years alone increased 57 percent above inflation!
Just because the Times doesn't connect the dots doesn't the mean rising rents aren't connected to rising taxes. To believe City Hall can ramp up its taxing and spending without also driving up the cost of private housing and pretty much everything else is to believe in magic, or to be economically illiterate.
None of this is to deny that Gotham faces a bind. Even as working-class and middle-class incomes stagnate, life here is growing vastly more expensive. Some of the forces driving this change, such as the weak national labor market, illegal immigration and the movement of global capital, are beyond a mayor's powers to change.
But that is no excuse for making things worse. Policies that sound good but ignore sound principles cannot deliver on their promises, no matter how much compassion fuels them.
The challenge to de Blasio is especially heavy. As a new mayor with no private business experience and a fondness for socialism, his determination to make government bigger, more expensive and more powerful carries considerable risk.
He has, thankfully, toned down his class-warfare rhetoric, but his ideas remain radical. Their practical incoherence will make it much more difficult to achieve even incremental gains in the standard of living for those of modest means.
For those successful businesses and families already nervous about his agenda, his spendthrift plans give them no comfort. He is shaping up to be the mayor they feared.
Banks for nothing, Eric
The feds are gunning for Public Enemy No. 1. This modern menace is more dangerous than John Dillinger, Al Capone and Baby Face Nelson put together. The feds are going after . . . banks?
Attorney General Eric Holder, in a new low in prosecutorial grandstanding, posted a video on the Justice Department Web site saying he is preparing criminal charges against two unidentified banks.
He said the cases would end the "too big to jail" syndrome.
Maybe or maybe not, since the "jail" part is up to a judge, or used to be. But the stunt should at least end some of the criticism from the far left that President Obama was too soft on banks after the housing-and-mortgage bust.
Apparently milking the banks of billions in profits wasn't punishment enough. The far left wants scalps, and Holder, after balking for years, is signaling that he's ready to oblige.
Chalk it up to another part of the Holder legacy. Already the first attorney general to be held in contempt by Congress, he, like the president who appointed him, enforces laws he likes and ignores those he doesn't. Now the banks must feel his wrath because, well, he says so.
Such is the long arm of the law in the age of Obama, when every crisis is met with a sharp left turn. Politics first, politics second, politics always.
Gov's 'Street' cred
Gov. Cuomo, speaking to the annual Columbia University Business School dinner, talked the talk. "I'm the CEO of the state of New York," he said. "My business is the quality of life of the people of New York."
The comments were part of a campaign-style address Monday night in Manhattan, where Cuomo was honored for promoting business-friendly policies. The Wall Street-heavy crowd showed its approval when he touted his record of walking the walk — tax cuts, smaller government and pension reform.
For red meat, he offered a searing indictment of Albany's bad habits.
"This state is addicted to spending," the governor said. "It went on for 50 years, and it had nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans."
Cuomo has a point — up to a point.
Albany's addiction to taxing and spending had everything to do with both Democrats and Republicans. The parties were united in believing that the public could be fleeced without end. As my late friend Sid Zion put it, they were "two parties against the people."
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