Posted on 03/25/2007 6:11:52 AM PDT by SJackson
The same Beltway experts who declared Sen. John McCain of Arizona the GOP front-runner, even as he under-polled fellow presidential contender Rudolph Giuliani, now parrot equally dodgy concepts. When Republicans meet "the real Rudy," they will abandon New York's former mayor like cattle fleeing a burning barn. Then, the wobbly Washington wisdom continues, Giuliani's three marriages, and his less-than-solidly-right-wing views on gays, guns and gametes will torpedo his buoyant presidential hopes.
These seers now detect unhappiness with the GOP aspirants. They cite a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in which 26 percent of Republican primary voters were dissatisfied with Giuliani, McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, among others. However, 56 percent called these choices satisfactory. This mirrors the 57 percent of conservative Republicans who preferred Giuliani, versus 31 percent for McCain. More broadly, Republicans backed Giuliani by 38 percent to McCain's 24, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's 10, Romney's 8, and 2 percent each for Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
But what if voters like Giuliani better upon understanding his pre-9/11 performance? Educating Republicans on his complete mayoral record - and soon - may be Giuliani's best bet for extinguishing the lingering grumbling about his candidacy.
Americans vividly remember Giuliani emerging from the ashes of Sept. 11 like a latter-day Churchill rising from the rubble of the London Blitz. However, these involved and informed citizens knew startlingly little about Giuliani's other mayoral achievements:
Through robust policing, Giuliani drove overall crime down 56.1 percent, while chopping homicides 66.6 percent, from 1,946 in 1993 to 649 in 2001.
Following national trends, abortions on Giuliani's watch dropped 16.9 percent, while taxpayer-funded Medicaid abortions plunged 23 percent.
Gotham's foster-care population fell 38 percent as Giuliani helped loving families adopt 17,804 boys and girls.
By fighting fraud and finding work for legitimate beneficiaries, Giuliani cut welfare rolls 58 percent, starting two years before federal welfare reform. Giuliani renamed welfare offices "Job Centers."
Giuliani privatized 23,625 previously confiscated, city-owned dwellings, 78 percent of supply, benefiting family and individual homeowners and tenants.
Giuliani dumped Gotham's 20 percent set-aside and 10 percent overbid bonus for minority and female contractors. "The whole idea of quotas to me perpetuates discrimination," he explained. He initiated this on his 24th day in office, far exceeding any colorblindness legislation Congress even debated during the 12-year "Republican Revolution."
Giuliani's $10 million Charter School Improvement Fund helped 3,286 pupils in 17 new charter schools, up from $0 and zero campuses in 1997. He ended tenure for school principals, so slackers could be sacked. He also stopped social promotion; students needed to complete grade-level work to matriculate.
Ex-pornography mecca Times Square now welcomes families, tourists and locals for fully clothed musicals like "The Lion King" and "Mary Poppins."
Beyond these socially conservative victories, Giuliani governed as a Reaganesque supply-sider:
Giuliani scrapped three taxes and slashed 20 others, lowering Gotham's tax burden by 17 percent and saving individual and business taxpayers $9.8 billion.
While inflation averaged 3.9 percent, Giuliani's average spending grew 2.9 percent annually. If the departed GOP Congress were that fiscally disciplined, the next federal budget would be $2.275 trillion - $625 billion cheaper than proposed.
While hiring 12 percent more cops and 12.8 percent more teachers, Giuliani sliced other positions 17.2 percent. Overall, the municipal headcount fell 3.1 percent.
Rudy got this done thanks largely to a management style that he described recently at a $2 million Manhattan fund-raiser: "I'm impatient and single-minded about my goals."
Before Giuliani's enemies caricature him as a divorce-driven, abortion-peddling, gun-grabbing transvestite, he should familiarize Republicans with his mayoral accomplishments. From Westwood to Washington's echo chamber, Rudy Giuliani and his supporters should specify how he rescued America's largest left-wing city through Reaganite social and economic reforms.
And on the serious aspects of these issues, his clearly anti 2nd amendment stance, what appear to be abortion on demand and civil union positions, Murdock is right, they won't cost him the election, and probably not the nomination. The fact is people will vote on the perception of leadership, and his widely touted perfromace in NYC.
I've commented quite a bit on his postion on gun control, as well as what to what I view over the top law enforcement. And yes, it worked.
I'd love to hear some commentary on the fiscal issues, perhaps Rudy's ability to grow the local economy in the midst of a national boom, perhaps the role of illegal workers, which I'm not as familiar with. And yes, tax cuts, that's a biggie. People will vote on that. His economic record is good on paper, I'd like to know the downside.
Transexuality, homosexuality, wives, his entire pelvic region I'm less interested in, so those posts can be directed to someone else.
PING
The Budget Buster
It's now apparent that Giuliani purchased the city's good times partially with borrowed money and left his successor, Mike Bloomberg, holding a bag of debt. New York City went from a $3 billion budget surplus in 1998 to a $4.5 billion deficit after Giuliani left office. This mismanagement of prosperity is a big part of his legacy. Giuliani left the city's finances in a mess that was aggravated by the collateral economic damage of 9/11--the loss of up to 130,000 jobs since 2001 and unexpected expenditures for relief, cleanup and overtime.
Tom Carroll is the president of the conservative activist group Change New York. He says of both Giuliani and Governor George Pataki: "There wasn't the fiscal discipline we had hoped to see overall. But on debt, there was no discipline at all."
Some fiscal watchdogs saw this coming, including State Comptroller McCall. In a report issued in July 2001, McCall declared: "As I've said time and again, the most responsible use of the record surpluses of the past few years would have been to reduce the City's mounting debt burden, and build a reserve fund for the rainy day that will inevitably come.... Record budget surpluses...afforded the City a golden opportunity to get on the path toward long-term fiscal stability. The opportunity has been squandered."
Most of the current budget deficit is Giuliani's responsibility. Tax cuts he enacted since 1995--benefiting mainly the wealthy--will cost the city $2.6 billion next year. He added 25,000 employees to the city's payroll, many of them patronage hires, after promising to cut the work force as a candidate of fiscal conservatism. On the day he left office, the head count of city workers was the highest in history.
Giuliani's borrowing practices increased the city's debt burden by 50 percent. New York City is now the biggest debtor in the nation outside the federal government, with $42 billion in loans outstanding. In comparison, the State of California has a debt of $25 billion. When Giuliani took office, the city was spending 15 cents of every dollar it collected in revenue to make the payments on its bonds. Fiscal monitors now project that New York will be spending 20 cents of every dollar to pay off its bonds by the end of this year. To the extent that debt service is rising, the city is forced to reduce spending on education, police and healthcare.
If a liberal Democrat had borrowed with such abandon, and converted a surplus into a deficit so swiftly, the bond raters and editorial boards would have demonized him as a drunken sailor on a binge. Giuliani was hardly criticized.
Rudy strikes a chord with a wide range of voters who are hungry for a powerhouse tough guy leader. (And are horrified by GWB's "islam is a religion of peace and love BS).
Yourself or anyone else who might be familiar with the situation. NYC had/has a large illegal population. One of the issues I think isn't addressed often enough is the status of FICA and tax witholding on compensation paid to illegals. Rudy was straightforward in preventing enforcement of federal law, so I guess I can't blame him for that. However NYC is one of the few cities with a city income tax. Were taxes witheld and remitted? If so, were the ID, I presume social security, numbers valid or false? Were employers of illegals prosecuted for any violation of the city tax laws. Non collecting, non remittance of witholding or maintainance of false ID records, all I which I presume is illegal in NYC.
I think that's his greatest strength. And that's why none of the moral criticisms will stick.
>>>>Transexuality, homosexuality, wives, his entire pelvic region I'm less interested in, so those posts can be directed to someone else.
Why are you less interested in his membership to a group that funds ANSWER? Why are you less interested in his membership to a group that promotes pedophilia?
I notice that's unsourced.
Everything I've seen says that Rudy took NYC out of a deficit situation and left with a surplus.
My understanding is that NYC prohibits the rolling over of a budget surplus from one year the next. The City effects a rollover by prepaying future expense (usually debt service). While this may reduce the future debt service burden, if also means the surplus is spent and no longer appears as a surplus.
This is the best article I've seen on Rudy's fiscal conservatism:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=26604
"He is much stronger than anyone could have predicted six months ago," said former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich from Georgia. "New York is four times safer than it used to be. It's one of the greatest achievements of government capability in the 20th century. And Rudy just has to go out and say, 'This is who I am. If you think the world's dangerous, and you need a tough guy … that's me.' "
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1786270/posts
Which Rudy Guliani operation do you belong to?
His defense of Israel and intolerance for Arab and U.N. sponsored anti-Semitism is legendary.
He figuratively walked into the lion's den of a crime ridden, high tax, and decaying city and carried out a conservative agenda of tax cuts, crime reduction and, in the case of the Brooklyn Museum, defense of religion in the public square. On this count Giuliani seems to be the winner in the public character category for his extraordinary vision and leadership.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1780064/posts
Rudy also kicked Arafat out of a concert hall. This was back when it wasn't fashionable and Clinton was hosting the terrorist in the White House as his most frequent guest.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19980
He pays me $100 a day to post here. I split it with management.
Oh, you got a raise :-)
I'm only getting $80/day.
I didn't know New York City levied a city income tax...Do they?
My State doesn't even levy a tax on income. It was mentioned in Tallahassee once(and critters started crawling out of the swamps) and we never heard another word about it again.
What group is he a member of that funds answer and promotes pedophilia? Details on his membership and particularly financial contributions would be intructive. If it's about making a speach somewhere as mayor, that's been covered on numerous threads. I'd me more interested in hearing about the faultlines in his perceived strengths, leadership and effective municipal governance.
They weren't staying in NYC before the attacks; they were in Florida. In January, our local GOP hosted a luncheon and the issue of state vs. federal responsibility as it relates to illegals was discussed at length. The reigning concensus seemed to be the feds weren't doing much to deal with this problem, and the states literally can't afford to deal with it on their own. For instance, the thousands of dollars to incarcerate, prosecute or return each illegal captured were head-exploding. It would literally bankrupt small towns and small cities to fully go after these people.
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