President Obama's visit today to Ground Zero has already had one noticeable impact: It has forced Mayor Bloomberg to postpone the release of his $66 billion budget proposal for next year.
Instead of being presented today, the plan will be made public tomorrow morning.
City officials have been closely monitoring tax collections in hopes they would exceed projections and allow restorations of drastic cuts the mayor put forward in February, including 4,666 teacher layoffs.
But Bloomberg said Tuesday that the revenues are close to target.
I'm going to bet that the layoff predictions stay the same in this budget announcement tomorrow.
Despite the $3.1 billion surplus, despite increasing tax revenues and a stock market that is back at 2008 highs (which means more tax revenues in the near future), despite the revelation that millions of dollars have been stolen by tech consultants hired by the DOE, despite the proposal by Bloomberg to spend $550 million on tech upgrades for schools next year even as he lays off teachers to save $300 million - despite all of these things, Bloomberg is going to go ahead with the layoffs.
Unless he is publicly shamed and forced to stop.
Shame? Clearly a foreign concept to this man.
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