At the risk of endlessly repeating myself, let me say again that politics in New York is dominated by two groups. Producers of public services, primarily the public employee unions but also representatives of contractors and the non-profiteers, who are always looking to charge more to provide less. And wealthy people and business interests that do not rely on public services and benefits themselves, and want to pay as little as possible for others to have them. Both sides will claim to speak for the beneficiaries of public services, and each will sometimes criticize and try to work against the interests of the other. But neither cares about public services, or has any sense of community with the people who use them. So no one is going to point out the sort of inconvenient truths noted in my series of posts on the proposed FY 2012 budget.
I speak not only of the so called “Public Advocate,” whose only job is to go around demanding something for nothing, and then imply that they could deliver it when they run for Mayor in a few years. I speak also of every member of the New York City Council. When the leaders of the public employees unions, or the New York Building Congress, or Local 1199 and the Greater New York Hospital Association, show up and at City Council budget hearings and demand more funding (without saying from where it should come), will anyone ask about the fairness of what they are providing and what they are charging for it? Will anyone bring up all the retroactive pension deals, the soaring cost of capital construction, the level of staffing here compared with elsewhere, etc.? The answer is no. Public services and benefits are what made a good life for the mass middle class possible. And they are being destroyed from the inside. Don’t let anyone’s propaganda tell you otherwise.