"Even with the tax cuts of the last several years, New York remains by far the most heavily taxed big city in the country.""The scope of government was not reduced at all. ..... 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. ..... the city instead failed to reduce spending."
Rudy borrowed his way through his administration, incurring massive debt servicing costs and leaving the city with a huge deficit. And that was during the dot-com boom when Wall Street, and its tax-paying businesses, was flush with cash and the economy was booming.
As to “strict constructionist,” that term was first thrown around in Presidential campaigns by Nixon. Nixon gave us Harry Andrew Blackmun, a “strict constructionist”. Harry Blackmun gaves us Roe v. Wade, the so-called “right to privacy” in relation to homosexual sodomy, denied reverse discrimination in his zeal for affirmative action, and offered some of the most destructive interpretations that have enabled the environmentalists. Rudy and his supporters can throw out the term “strict constructionist” as much as they want. From a man who thinks women have a “right” to abortion (paid for by taxpayers) and that “you’ve got to regulate consistent with the Second Amendment,” it is simply NOT believable that Rudy will appoint justices with a conservative bent. His record clearly shows that he preferred liberal justices--that is what he appointed, overwhelmingly, as during his term as NYC Mayor.
As to his other appointments--have you looked at how many of them went to jail or are under indictment for public corruption and various salacious acts? Kerik, Harding, Roberts, Russi, Gelormino, Carbonetti, Serra, Patrick... READ UP! The man has serious flaws in judgment and should be kept from ANY position of power, IMO.
The article also seems to belie your claim that “Rudy borrowed his way through his administration, incurring massive debt servicing costs and leaving the city with a huge deficit.” It appears to me that he inherited a large budget deficit from David Dinkins, cut taxes, balanced the budget for most of his term, and that the deficit that he left office with as the economy had headed into recession (and much of which was due to 9/11) was covered by surpluses in previous years of his administration.
Given that he did all this in such a heavily Democratic city I find what he did accomplish to be amazing, and that’s not even counting the dramatic reduction in crime or his performance on 9/11.
And while I admit he’s no social conservative (neither am I on several issues) it’s tough to look at Time’s Square before and after he took office and view him as a liberal.
As for the people he appointed who went to jail, I think that’s basically a cheap-shot guilt-by-association argument. He appointed so many people in a city where most of the candidates for those positions had climbed their way up through a corrupt system that there was no way he could realistically avoid appointing some people who would turn out themselves to be corrupt.
That is a fact that cannot be emphasized enough. The stock market was on fire for just about all of Rooty's term as mayor. Everyone in the financial industry was getting huge bonuses and because so many of them live and work in NYC, a lot of this money found its way into the city coffers. So, while NYC's revenues certainly rose during his term, there is NO WAY to give Rooty credit for it.