Bloomberg's 'ticket blitz'
A sneaky way to raise taxes
By G. Dunkel
New York
All over the country, tax cuts for
corporations and the rich plus a weak economy have left local
governments struggling to handle the resulting deficits.
They can't print money, like the federal government, and are
prevented by law from running into red ink. Some cities which
have essentially gone bankrupt have been put under state
control and have to slash services to the bone and beyond.
New York's billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg has come up
with a novel twist on raising money--without formally raising
taxes, which requires permission from the state and his City
Council. It's called a ticket blitz.
This reporter saw a good example of the blitz. Two cars were
parked in a bus stop, picking up students from a local college.
A traffic agent wrote two tickets at over $100 each,
threatening the drivers with another if they didn't move. When
one pulled out of the bus stop and doubled parked to get the
last bit of luggage in, another cop came along and gave him a
ticket for double parking.
And it's not just parking tickets. Press reports tell of one
person who was ticketed for sitting on a milk crate--that's
against some local ordinance. A pregnant high school student
was tired and sat on some subway steps to rest. She got a
ticket for blocking the steps.
A block in Queens was subject to a sanitation agent blitz;
there are an amazing number of ways you can incorrectly put out
your garbage. But even when residents pulled in their bags
before the agents got to their houses, they were ticketed. And
some were ticketed because the agent had already made out the
ticket even though he couldn't find anything wrong with their
bags.
The billionaire mayor, accused of setting quotas, says they
are just "productivity targets."
Black and Latino political leaders have denounced this new
Bloomberg campaign. "Again, Mayor Bloomberg is showing his
preference for the rich," said Helen Foster, co-chair of the
Council's Black and Hispanic Caucus.
"I'm sure if his mother, sister or daughter were pregnant,
he wouldn't want them to get a summons for sitting down on the
subway [steps]. But then again, they'd probably be in a car
service and wouldn't have to be on the train. And that shows
two worlds," Foster said at a City Hall news conference.
Added Council member Charles Barron of Brooklyn: "We cannot
allow the mayor to continue to balance the budget off the backs
of poor people."
Reprinted from the June 12, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS ::
SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page