Wake Up Call for the City that Never Sleeps

Mayor Bloomberg is facing many troubles with New York City’s economy.
According to Bloomberg’s testify before a state finance committee on January 25th and his preliminary budget on January 28th, his budget plan for 2011 might include:

-$4.9 billion deficit
-Cuts for every city agency (seventh time since 2007)
-Possibly closing:
*four NYC swimming pools
*a Manhattan centre for the homeless
*removing fire-alarm boxes from city streets to decrease number of hoax calls
*fire stations
-city funding for soup kitchens might have to go
-reduce in frequency of garbage collecting
-reduce in city payroll by 4,286
-let go of 19,000 city workers

NYC might experience a very similar hardship as it did in the 1970’s when fire stations were closed, garbage went uncollected, police officers were laid off, etc. In fact, the number of New Yorkers looking for work (425,000) is the largest it has been since the 1970’s.

Mayor Bloomberg seems to be New York’s biggest villain. Thousands of people will be out of jobs or receive pay cuts because of him. Shouldn’t he be trying to help New Yorkers, not hurt them? All his troubles should save the city about $1.6 billion over the next two years. But will cost lives to change. When the $1.6 billion that will be saved is compared to the looming $4.9 billion deficit that NYC will most likely have next year, do the consequences seem worth it? We’ll still have an unfathomable amount of money to pay off. What’s a little more?

However, we fell into this trap before. If we keep avoiding paying off our debts, the inevitable will (and did) happen. Our deficit keeps getting bigger! Every penny counts. The more we save, the closer we are to our goal. Of course, it’s hard to admit this when you are drowning in debts because you lost your job or have a decreased salary. But it’s true. The hardships America will face are necessary for us to get back to where we came from. The American people, whether they deserve it or not, have to face the consequences to climb back to the peak. I’m not saying we should take drastic measures to save every penny possible, but our lives are definitely going to have to change – if they haven’t already.


The Economist ,“Bloomberg’s budget(s) blues”, February 6th, 2010