Try, try again

Last week I blogged about how New York would almost certainly face serious problems due to the loss of taxable revenue from Wall Street. Guess what?

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s budget director ordered agency directors on Tuesday to cut spending by a total of $1.5 billion over two fiscal years, starting with the current fiscal year, which began on July 1. The spending reductions come as the mayor is floating the idea of a 7 percent property tax increase on homeowners, a move that could generate an additional $600 million in revenue each year.

Try again, buddy. Instead of subsidizing projects in areas that could bring in serious tax cash for the city in addition to making up the differences of rent controlled apartments, let markets developers do their job. You're still gonna be short but if you are seriously thinking about running again (and having enough support to change the laws to allow it) higher taxes ain't the ticket. Not this year.

On bailouts and buyers

Not to make light of the recent troubles on Wall Street but Megan McArdle echoed today a thought that had been running through my head given the bailouts, conservatorships, or whatever the Paulson and the Fed want to call their actions to keep Americans happy.

All of New York's rebound has been paid for by taxes on the financial industry -- a few hundred thousand people in the industry pay the lion's share of taxes for the entire city. Tale them away, and the city will rapidly lurch bak towards bankruptcy.

One question. Is Bloomberg going to bailout the City if the Korea Development Bank doesn't bite?

(Photo by Christopher Chan)

In cahoots? Or, T. Boone Pickens II.

Flying under the media radar (poor pun completely intended) is Mayor Bloomberg's newest authoritarian plan for New York: wait for it...wind power!

Announced yesterday, Mr. Bloomberg's proposed urban makeover would place wind turbines of varying shapes and sizes - and one should assume, efficiency - all over the New York skyline (talking with Pickens much?). No one said the man was not ambitious (remember his congestion tax?!) but this is a plan that deserves support. Though this exact proposal will never come fully into effect it is worth monitoring. Despite the NIMBY sentiments most New Yorkers will loudly and proudly voice, their city presents a perfect laboratory for testing the feasibility of future renewable energy.

New York is about as urban, regulated, and crowded a city one can find in the West. If Bloomberg can streamline the city's energy systems, legal hurdles, and population into a coherent framework for instituting his idea, the world will be forced to consider such plans much more seriously.

Besides, if he's wrong the city loses nothing and will probably wind up with a more efficient political and regulatory environment. And if Bloomberg's right? Well then the world will be shown that even a city that never rests won't be running on empty anytime soon.