Even as he hailed Bill de Blasio's "progressive revolution," The Daily Beast's Michael Daly sought to downplay fears that the newly-sworn-in mayor was a radical leftist intent on soaking the rich. Instead Daly practically painted a picture of the Democratic politician as a drum major leading the "march" to a more "equal" New York.
While noting de Blasio was a "leader speaking much the same language" as the now moribund Occupy Wall Street movement, Daly insisted the left-of-center David Dinkins acolyte "was only asking [wealthy New Yorkers] to pay 'a little more.'" Heck, de Blasio "suggested that the city’s very wealthiest would be paying only $973 more a year," no big whoop:
“That’s less than three bucks a day – about the cost of a small soy latte at your local Starbucks,” he said.
He was speaking of not so much occupying Wall Street as enlisting it.
“So please remember: we do not ask more of the wealthy to punish success,” he said. “We do it to create more success stories.”
When you tax someone, you aren't "asking" them to pay more, you're demanding, under penalty of law, that they do so. The price tag of the opportunity cost is immaterial to the fact that it's less money in the pocket of the taxpayer and accordingly less money those taxpayers can voluntarily exchange with others, including, yes, Starbucks franchises which employ working and middle-class baristas with whom de Blasio claims to empathize.
Suffice it to say Daly did not consider this angle in his gauzy piece which aimed at relaying de Blasio's manifesto rather than critically analyzing it (emphasis mine):
He ended by noting that the city was no stranger to a good fight.
“New York has faced fiscal collapse, a crime epidemic, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters,” he said. “But now, in our time, we face a different crisis – an inequality crisis.”
He acknowledged it is a calamity that can go largely unnoticed by those who do not feel its full brunt. And those who do feel it are too often not heard.
“It’s a quiet crisis, but one no less pernicious than those that have come before,” he said.
He still looked like he was not feeling his best, but he had never been better as he went on to say, “Its urgency is read on the faces of our neighbors and their children, as families struggle to make it against increasingly long odds.”
He invoked a New York to come like the New York that once was, before chaos and crime gave liberalism a bad name.
“We will remember what makes New York, New York,” he declared. “A city that fights injustice and inequality — not just because it honors our values, but because it strengthens our people”
As he continued, a listener needed only substitute “country” for “city” and “New York” to see how the progressive view would play for a national candidate such as Hillary Clinton, who was now politically married to him.
“It’s a place that celebrates a very simple notion: that no matter what your story is – this is your city. Our strength is derived from you. Working together, we will make this One City. And that mission — our march toward a fairer, more just, more progressive place, our march to keep the promise of New York alive for the next generation.”
The test of his abilities and resolve would have been commencing even as he spoke, whether or not he had closed by saying, “It begins today.”
Meanwhile, the new year’s first big storm is expected to hit the city on Thursday and snow removal comes before social justice. The performance of the Clinton’s political BF will be there for all to see.
The progressive new mayor says he is ready. And you can bet that if need be he will be out with a shovel himself, sick or not.
Readers might be excused for reaching for a shovel of their own after reading Daly and others in the media who have been effusive in their praise of de Blasio.
