[My GOP]

You can't say Rudy didn't cut taxes because Dinkins raised taxes before Rudy took office. What Dinkins did does not cancel out what Rudy did. You are really grasping for straws there.

Secondly, Rudy inherited a deficit. By the end of his first term that deficit was a surplus. The only reason he left office with a deficit was because of the recession of 2001 and the economic impact of 9/11.

I think its great Rudy outsourced government jobs to the private sector. I'm very much pro- free market and believe the free market is much more effective than government.

[Reagan Man]

I'm not grasping for straws. Just being honest. Its a rhetorical ploy, but I use it to make my point about Rudy`s liberalism. Yes, I stated clearly that Rudy cut taxes. But according to the Manhattan Institute, the net effect of those income tax cuts was only a modest savings to New Yorkers when viewed in the context of the Dinkins tax increases. New York remained the highest taxed big city in America.

The $2.0 billion deficit Rudy left behind was based on his own administrations pre-9/11 fiscal projections. Adding to an increase in the overall city debt to $42 billion.

Outsourcing can be good and it can be bad. In the case of Rudy`s farming out of city related services, it was a mixed bag at best. The spike in costs for farming out city services was costly and directly contributed to a failure to reduce spending and the scope of city government.

Those aren't my remarks. They come from the Manhattan Institute. A non-profit NYC policy think tank that had friendly relations with Mayor Giuliani.