Billionaire autocrat Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, went on Meet the Press over the weekend and declared that the Bush Administration’s temporary tax cuts for the wealthy should be extended “for another couple of years,” for the sake of our fragile economy. His remarks were reported in billionaire publisher Mort Zuckerman’s Daily News.
Supporters of extending the tax cuts believe that the wealthiest Americans need to feel free to spend their own money, which would then revive the rest of the economy.
Burdensome taxation is not an unfamiliar hardship to most New Yorkers. Previously, Mayor Bloomberg had addressed the economic downturn by raising the city’s sales tax —making it more expensive for everyone, rich or poor, to pay for goods and services—and by trying to illegally withhold residents’ annual $400 property-tax rebates.
But when it comes to his own taxes—as with
his own term limits
—the mayor recognizes that it’s not fair or wise to ask people to make sacrifices in the middle of a crisis. Not if those people are Michael Bloomberg, anyway.
