For at least the 100th time, he:
CUT TAXES
CUT THE SIZE OF GOBERNEMNGT
CUT SPENDING
REMOVED SET ASIDE FOR MINORITIES AND WOMEN OWNED BUSINESSES
REMOVED OPEN ADMISSION TO CCNY
KEPT ARAFAT FROM MAKING SPEECHES AND WANDERING ALL OVER N.Y.C.
STOOD UP TO A SAUDI PRINCE
STOOD UP AGAINST THE UN
MADE IT EASIER FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS TOP OPEN AND RUN
CUT THE WELFARE ROLLS BY 60-70 PERCENT
THREW A FIT OVER A COW DUNG SMEARED AND FEMALE GENITILIA STREW PAINTING
STOOD SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH THE PRESIDENT, ON THE WOT
GONE OUT AND HELPED ANY AND EVERY SINGLE GOP CANDIDATE HE COULD, RAISE MONEY AND GHET OUT THE VOTE
And much more; however, in your wee universe, he never ever did anything at all, that can even remotely be considered to be Conservative, because you refuse to acknowledge what he has actually done.
Should I make my reply in H1 format like you did?
Nah, I don't need to. The truth does not need to be in a large font.
Rudy is pro choice.
Pro gun-control
Pro amnesty.
Defied federal law and federal court orders to keep NYC a sanctuary city.
Took guns away from long-term permit holders that never had David Dinkins take away their guns.
Rudy has massive personal baggage that will only feed the Clinton slime machine.
Rudy pushed Bernie Kerik to be head of Homeland Security, and Bernie went down in flames with massive ethical problems, much to the embarassment of President Bush. What other Rudy cronies are waiting out there to blow up in the face of the GOP?
Should I go on?
Thus far, Rudy is the most leftwing candidate running for the GOP nomination. His fiscal record as Mayor of NYCity spanned an eight year time period, with a beginning, middle and end phase. Lets look at the end phase.
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, 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 abolish the city income tax. 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, overall, Rudy left office with NYCity the highest taxed big city in America, with some of the highest income taxes, property taxes and ultility rates in the nation.
GOVT SPENDING: From 1997 to 2001, spending under Giuliani went up 32%. More then double the rate of inflation. Rudy left NYCity with a $2.0 billion deficit and a $42-billion debt. 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).
From the Manhattan Institute For Policy Research:
"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 from a source friendly to Rudy Giuliani and proof positive, he was/is NO fiscal conservative. Just another run-of-the-mill NYCity liberal.
