Posted on 04/23/2007 2:17:05 AM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
Judging by the cranky feedback, supporters of Rudy Giuliani's bid for the Republican presidential nomination did not like my column last week. To sum up, I argued that Giuliani was pro-abortion and therefore did not deserve support from conservatives.
Rudy backers offered three comebacks. Some simply chose to ignore his shameful pro-abortion record. Others proclaimed that abortion was just one issue and Rudy is a conservative on most others, especially fiscal issues. Finally, another group decided that his policy positions really don't matter because Rudy is the only guy who can beat Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Since we dealt with Giuliani's sordid abortion background last week, let's move on to the other two responses. Is Rudy a conservative on most other issues? Based on his record, he is, at best, a mixed bag.
He does deserve a conservative thumbs-up in a few areas. Obviously, crime in New York City declined by big numbers while he was mayor from 1994 to 2001, due, in part, to policing changes during his administration. Mayor Giuliani also frequently spoke about school choice. While not investing any real political capital, his stance took courage as mayor of the big-union Big Apple.
For good measure, Giuliani put together a deal to privatize the city's bloated, patronage-ridden Off-Track Betting Corp., but his successor dropped the ball....."
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
You are pretty arrogant to think that YOUR anecdotal evidence weighs more heavily than anyone else’s.
From the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research:
"Even with the tax cuts of the last several years, New York remains by far the most heavily taxed big city in the country."
TAXES: Giuliani did cut the marginal city income tax rates, reducing taxes by some $2.0-billion from 1996-2001, but those cuts only offset the $1.8-billion increase in city income tax rates put in place by Mayor Dinkins a few years earlier. In the end, income taxes were actually cut by a modest $200-million. Freezing the 12.5% surcharge on high wage earners was good, but Giuliani didn't attempt to abolish that surcharge. Nor did Giuliani attempt to make serious permanent changes to the city income tax code. The primary reason Rudy and the City Council agreed to cut taxes, was to make NYCity more appealing to new businesses thinking about locating/relocating to the Big Apple. A smart move, however, when Rudy left office he left NYCity straddled with some of the highest income taxes, property taxes and utility rates in the entire nation.
GOVERNMENT SPENDING: Spending under Rudy`s reign as Mayor went up 35.6%, compared to the inflation rate of 22.2%. Rudy left NYCity with a projected, pre-9/11 deficit of $2.0 billion and an increased debt total of $42-billion. Second largest debt after the federal government. Giuliani also added 15,000 new teachers to the city employment rolls. Increasing the membership of two major liberal organizations, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
"The scope of government was not reduced at all. The mayor abandoned his most visible initiative in this sphere—the proposed sale of the city hospital system—after a struggle with the unions and defeats in the courts. He did cut costs in social services; even before the new federal welfare reforms took effect in 1997, the city had begun to significantly reduce caseloads. But money saved on social services has only helped to subsidize big increases in other categories. Today the array of social services sponsored and partially funded by the city—from day care to virtually guaranteed housing—is as wide as ever.
"In the final analysis, Mayor Giuliani sought to make the city deliver services more efficiently—not to make the city deliver fewer services. Gains in efficiency were offset, however, by a spike in the costs of outsourced contracts (see point 2 below). Thus, in two areas where inroads might have been made, the city instead failed to reduce spending."
"1. Personnel Increases. In 1995–96, the city entered into a series of collective bargaining agreements with its public-employee unions. In addition to granting pay increases that ended up roughly equaling inflation, the city promised not to lay off any workers for the life of the contracts. These agreements were expected to add $2.2 billion to the budget by fiscal 2001. But that estimate didn’t reckon with renewed growth in the number of city employees. After dipping in Giuliani’s first two years, the full-time headcount rose from 235,069, in June 1996 to over 253,000 by November 2000. Thanks largely to this growth in the workforce, the total increase in personnel service costs since 1995 has been $4 billion.
2. "Outsourced Services. The failure to shrink the scope of city government made it all the more imperative that Mayor Giuliani vastly increase its efficiency. In the attempt to increase productivity, the mayor farmed out some city services to private contractors. But as the number of outsourced contracts doubled under Giuliani, contractual expenses also nearly doubled—from $3 billion to $5.8 billion. While it may be argued that the city saved money by outsourcing these services, the net savings turned out to be marginal at best. In practice, outsourcing proved to be more of a bargaining chip in negotiations with unions than a serious means of pruning expenses."
Hard evidence that Rudy Giuliani was NO fiscal conservative. Another run-of-the-mill NYCity liberal.
Very good!
Rudy would be a GREAT candidate - for the Democrats.
Matter of fact, I’d have some hope for the Democrat Party if Rudy were its lead candidate.
Wellllll . . . :-D
The Buchannan Brigades at the time seemed like the majority here, just like now.
At the time, I was thinking the party was going to split open over the immigration issues. In the end, it was all much ado about nothing.
Will history repeat itself again?
If my experience with folks in the outside world is to be believed, I wouldn't bet on Rudy losing. He seems to be getting a solid majority of all voting blocks, even the Social Cs. But only time will tell.
That's where we're at now, for sure.
The anti-Rudy folks are predicting Biblical-type end of the world disasters if Rudy is elected. His past history suggests otherwise -- he did a good job as mayor of NYC. He controlled taxes and spending, while staying tough.
If he does that as Prez, there's going to be a lot of folks eating some words in the future. And a lot of political clout gone.
:-D
I see -- trusting my own eyes over the statements of obvious political partisans who have an agenda is 'arrogant'.
We're gonna need a new dictionary, all these new definitions of words I was unfamiliar with . . .
And you still use the article out of context.
Partisans with an agenda aren't much bothered by little things like 'truth', I s'pose?
Very interesting.
BUSTED!!!!
Can you back up this statement? I haven't seen anywhere that Rudy got a "majority" of any voting block.
Those are your words. Not mine. I know for sure that Rudy Giuliani is a liberal.
Told you last week. When people read the full article, they get the full impact of Rudy`s two terms as mayor of NYC. His early accomplishments in the first term are far outweighed by the deficit and debt he left behind for NewYawkers. The article spells that out in no uncertain terms
And I haven't even mentioned Rudy`s extreme liberalism on the social issues. Positions that place Rudy in the far leftwing of the GOP. Issues like his support for abortion as a constitutional right, his support for PBA, his calls for more gun control, his support for gay rights, his support for amnesty and his envirowacko promotion that humans are a significant cause of global warming. Rudy makes a good Democrat. As a Republican he sucks.
In the end, enough conservatives will not vote for Rudy and that will sink his campaign. To reach that objective JimRob has laid down the law around FR. Lying and obfuscating about Rudy`s true liberal record and promoting liberals like Giuliani for POTUS, will no longer be tolerated around this forum. At the same time, denouncing good conservative candidates, elected conservatives and trashing conservative icons will also not be tolerated.
Now, what were you saying about Rudy?
#40, #41
“Here in the deep South, most conservatives I know love Rudy and will vote for him”
Yoiks!. Ya better provide some backup for that one!
That is crap. No conservative “loves” Rooody. Some might vote for him out of sheer desperation. LIBERALS love Roooody!
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