Rudy is a fiscal, domestic, and foreign policy conservative that supports strict constructionist. I question the validity of that chart. It does after all say that Hillary and the Democrats support the War in Iraq.
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.
GOVERNMENT 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."
Once again, hard evidence that Rudy Giuliani was NO fiscal conservative. Another run-of-the-mill NYCity liberal.
Typos are not mine.
Rudy Giuliani on Hardball discussing judicial nominations.
MATTHEWS: you pointed out Howard dean is not a good example. a good paradigm of getting across the aisle politically. What about this group of 14 senators. The seven democrats and republican. we had a big sampler of them earlier this week. Do you think that's a future for the two parties to maybe break away from the leadership so both sides try to find what Jesse Jackson likes to call, common ground?
GIULIANI: sure. Absolutely. That s a good example. The difference is Howard dean is a party chairman. If anybody is going to be excessively partisan, it will be a party chairman. Republican or democrat. The senators have to get things done. They have to accomplish things. And the way you accomplish things is often by compromise. One of my political heroes was Ronald Reagan. And Ronald Reagan among the many other things that he used to say was that if you were willing to take 70% or 80%, and not insist on your entire position, you could accomplish a lot more.
MATTHEWS: let's talk about judgeships. I know you're pro-choice and you're for gay right and you're a little bit off the center mark of the Republican Party. Maybe you're in the center of the country. we have all this supreme court action coming up this summer. I hate to be ghoulish about it but we may have a resignation, a retirement from the chief justice. Do you think Scalia would be a good choice to move up from associate judge to a chief justice?
GIULIANI: he's somebody I ve known for many, many years. I ve worked with him in the justice department during ford administration. I had tremendous admiration for him. And he would be a terrific justice. he would be a terrific chief justice. Obviously the president has a lot of people to consider. I don't know. he probably doesn't know at this point what he'll do. You know, Scalia is a terrific judge.
MATTHEWS: he's a popular guy. I just wondered whether you think he fits in that category of not being extraordinary. in other words, not being a reason for a democratic filibuster.
GIULIANI: i don't think he would cause a democratic filibuster. People disagree with him probably somebody disagrees about everything. But I think that he would move through. I think that, when you think about it, he doesn't really add anything to the political calculus of the court torrid logical calculus of the court because he is where he is and he is on the court. it will be whoever gets appointed to let's say, if justice Scalia is elevated. Whoever gets appointed to replace justice Scalia will be the one that gets the most scrutiny.
MATTHEWS: you know the big fight is one that the courts, you know, you're an attorney. You know that the big issue is whether to change the balance with regard to abortion rights. Right now it is about 6-3 counting O Connor and the conservatives. And also Kennedy. Do you think that if you were president, would you stick with that balance? Or try to maintain it?
GIULIANI: I wouldn't -- I selected 100 judges or so when I was the mayor of New York City. I participated in the selection of judges when I was in the Reagan administration. I wouldn't pick a judge based on whether I knew or didn't know the position on choice. I would pick a judge based on the overall record. how intellectually powerful they are. How accomplished they are. Are they going to be fair? in my case, i selected judges for municipal court so they were largely going to handle criminal cases. and i wanted judges that were tough. I wanted judges who would be a little tougher on bail and on letting people out and, but not necessarily excessive on that. The idea of selecting a judge, the litmus test, I don't think practically works. I ve seen the selection of the Supreme Court justices when justice O Connor was select by Ronald Reagan. I was in the justice department. And you look at somebody's entire record. You don't know what they'll decide about these things.
MATTHEWS: the good old days when f.d.r. could pick Felix Frankfurt and discover he was a conservative or Ike could pick out war yep and find out he was a liberal or suitor could get picked by George bush sr. aren't the days oh when you could pick a guy and not know which way he'll go?
GIULIANI: I don't think so.
MATTHEWS: what about the interest groups, leak you have the people for the American way. And you have James Dobson, focus on the family on the right side of things. Do you think those crowds will let you get by with picking somebody they don't know about?
GIULIANI: yes. I think they have to. in many cases, first of all, you might select somebody who hasn't really taken a position on any of these issues before. MATTHEWS: can you get them passed if they have no paper trail?
GIULIANI: I think so. Depending on how powerful the credentials are. Are they very accomplished lawyers, very accomplished judges, do they have the intellectual capacity and the integrity for the job? if they're very powerful candidates, I think there isn't going to be as much focus on one individual position.
MATTHEWS: let's put together a Giuliani slate for the court next summer. Suppose you put Supreme Court associate justice Scalia up for Rehnquist's seat. Then you move up Alberto Gonzales up for associate justice. Would you like that ticket?
GIULIANI: I think beyond talking about who is on the court, you shouldn't talk about other selections for the court. The attorney general is a terrific lawyer. And really doesn't have, although he was on the Texas court, he doesn't have a record as a federal judge.
MATTHEWS: he would be perfect by your standards. you could pick a guy without nailing down his position on roe versus wade.
GIULIANI: i don't know that you want to pick somebody on that. the supreme court requires tremendous intellectual capacity to be a contributing justice. And someone like the attorney general would certainly fit that category very, very well.
MATTHEWS: are you available?
GIULIANI: no. I m not available.
MATTHEWS: why not? You just described yourself. high intellectual caliber, hard to figure politically, no paper trail on roe v. wade.
GIULIANI: and somebody that's a little harder to figure on some of these issues probably has a better chance to get confirmed. I m not a candidate.
MATTHEWS: we'll be right back with the former mayor of New York. Rudolph Giuliani.