Mayor Bloomberg compared the teachers union with defense attorneys and said it should be "ashamed" of its successful lawsuit to keep 19 failing schools open.
"You can't say the defense lawyer is a bad person because they're defending somebody who is accused of a crime," he said. "That's not fair to them ... but having said that, the union itself should be out there advocating for better schools, and this does not help get better schools."
And closing 20-25 schools a year, enlarging the ATR pool, enlarging class sizes, stealing money meant to lower class sizes and using it for data tracking systems, giving no bid contracts to cronies, trying to lay off senior teachers so the city can save pension and salary costs and using test scores as the sole measure of student and teacher achievement makes schools better?
Screw you, Mike.
You're just not used to actually losing something once in a while.
My mother used to say you can tell the measure of a person by how they act when they lose.
Under that measure, Bloomberg - who is used to getting his way all the time - is a sore loser.
And a jerk.
On the other hand, when it comes to defending those poor picked-on hedge fund managers, Mayor Mikey is up to the task:
ALBANY, N.Y. (Associated Press) -- New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Albany's plan for a state a budget will be a big help -- for Connecticut.
To the billionaire mayor and upset that rich New Yorkers might move because of more taxes, state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver of Manhattan said to relax: The small bites on the wealthy are mostly temporary and a way to avoid deeper cuts to schools.
The mayor focused on the Legislature's plan to tax hedge fund managers to raise $50 million. It's part of a fiscal plan, which could potentially be vetoed by Gov. David Paterson, that would also tap the rich by reducing the state tax deduction for charitable giving and delaying some business tax credits.
"I think it's the best thing that ever happened to Connecticut," Bloomberg said. "I can't imagine why every hedge fund wouldn't pick up tomorrow and move," the independent mayor said of lucrative investment groups used by the wealthy.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, said he told Bloomberg that taxes and fees raised in the budget and felt by the wealthy are unavoidable in a fiscal crisis and when the state faces a $9.2 billion deficit.
"I told him it's a temporary situation, he understands that," Silver said Albany. "We need revenue in this state. He's complaining about some of the cuts we made to the city. We try to do a balance so we can provide some things and cut some things, and that's what it's about."
Not for Mayor Mikey.
For Mayor Mikey it is ALWAYS about making sure his rich cronies continue to rake the money no matter how much money he has to cut from schools, libraries, parks, etc.
How about this from his speech..."The first commonsense rule of taxation is, 'Don't tax people that can leave,'".
ReplyDeleteThat's right, Mikey, stick it to the peons who can't afford to.
Perhaps the problem is we live in a society that allows the hedge fund cowboys to make a living any old way we want, hide most of their wealth elsewhere, then beg them to stay in state when talk of raising their taxes a little comes around.
ReplyDeleteOf course, since most of our politicians are beholden to these scumbags, I guess nothing will change any time soon.
I used to hope that the near collapse in '08 brought about by the hedge fund/financial scumbags would bring about systemic real change (not the jive Hopey/Changey was selling.)
Now I see that only collapse will bring that about.
It is a shame.
But we may get that.
And note that Bloomberg manifestly failed to hold Joel Klein accountable for not being able to stage a process that met the fairly minimal requirements of the law.
ReplyDelete