Bloomberg: I'm A Fiscal Genius!

Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave a speech today in which he publicly patted himself on the back for his genius at stewarding the city through rough economic waters and warned that whoever follows him into City Hall had better follow the Bloomberg plan or New York City will turn into Detroit.

Yeah, it was a real humble speech, full of soul-searching and honest reflection for why New York City has income inequality levels approaching Third World proportions, a gap that has significantly worsened under Bloomberg.

No, actually it wasn't that kind of speech at all.

Bloomberg clearly has a fine conception of himself, his abilities and his track record, but as he was touting his fiscal genius in general terms in today's speech, I couldn't help but think of some of that fiscal genius in individual terms.

There was the $500 million Bloomberg allowed to be stolen as part of the CityTime project - the worst fraud perpetrated in NYC history.

There is the 911 system that doesn't work, sometimes crashes half a dozen times a day and puts New Yorkers at risk - but in the end will cost over $2.3 billion, at least $1 billion overbudget.  Oh, and it's at least 7 years past deadline.

Then there is the $80 million ARIS system that everybody in the NYC school system hates and the $36 million dollar NYCHA computer system that doesn't work and the GPS systems he bought for the FDNY that he spent $7.3 million on ($56,000 per GPS unit) that don't work and often gives directions for trucks to drive into the East River and the $43.2 million he allowed some consultant crooks to steal from the DOE with the help of former Tweedie Judith Hederman.

Wow - just look at all that genius! 

I mean, how could NYC ever have survived the 2008 recession without Mike Bloomberg's fiscal genius?

And that's not even tallying up all the little frauds perpetrated by the outside consultants and vendors here and there - the $1.7 million stolen by Willard Lanham from the DOE or the $2.7 million stolen by Nelson Ruiz from the DOE or the myriad other "little" scandals that Bloomberg turned a blind eye to while he pursued his fiscal genius policies.

It would be nice if somebody in the press would call him on his propaganda, but that would actually take somebody in the press with the guts or desire to do that.

Instead they suck up to him like Bill Keller at the Times and Michael Wolff at The Guardian, no doubt knowing that someday they, too, will have to work for Bloomberg or one of his rich pals when their newspapers get bought up in a vanity purchase by one of the half dozen oligarchs in this country still willing to own print.

And so we have this myth that follows Bloomberg around, spread by Bloomberg and the journalists and p.r. people on his payroll, that Bloomberg has been a masterful fiscal steward of the city when, even a rudimentary closer look at the history, shows that is just not so.