One must judge a leader by whether the plans that he has laid have furthered or hindered the purposes of the institution he leads. In the case of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, his record is execrable. Mr. Bloomberg is a former bond trader who, if anyone, ought to be aware that financial markets are cyclical. He has been mayor for nearly eight years, during which time the fifty-year trend of New York's becoming a one-industry town has continued unabated. That industry is, of course, Mr. Bloomberg's first one, the financial industry and Wall Street.
New York has seen industry flee because of its astronomical tax rates, about which Mr. Bloomberg has done nothing. New Yorkers pay more than one half of their incomes to government (including federal and social security as well as state and city taxes) yet the services that the City provides are abysmal. New Yorkers need not watch horror movies. They just need to step into the subway system to be assaulted by the miasma of foul bums, rats scurrying to and fro and a transportation system out of the 1960s television program (based on Charles Addams's New Yorker Magazine cartoon series) The Addams Family.
In nearly eight years in office Mayor Bloomberg did nothing to reverse the long term trend of exit from New York. Taxes are as high as ever and services are worse than ever. He has failed to lead. He has failed to attract industry. His only two accomplishments are absurd televsion screens in taxi cabs and his initiative in abolishing the term limits that prevented Rudolph Giuliani from running for a third term but that will conveniently allow Bloomberg inflict his incompetence on a failing city for four more years.
Mr. Bloomberg joins the other Uncle Festers, Morticias and Pugsleys, and of course, "the thing", their hands reaching, reaching, reaching for ever more handouts, ever more freshly printed Fed bailout money from a corrupt, incompetent Congress.
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