New York’s Request for Taxpayer Bailouts Said to Obscure Real Issues
New York officials who have asked Congress to provide more federal funds to alleviate the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic should make better use of existing resources and reevaluate their decisions, according to an analysis of a $500 billion “bailout” proposed by the National Governors Association.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, both Democrats, have expressed displeasure with President Donald Trump’s comments on Twitter and in media interviews when asked about the appropriateness of all U.S. taxpayers’ bailing out states that aren’t well run.
“Washington has no need to fund New York’s wasteful ways,” E.J. McMahon, research director at the Albany-based Empire Center for Public Policy, told The Daily Signal in an interview.
“If I was a governor of another state right now, I’d wish Cuomo would be quiet and go away, because the more it’s about him in New York, the less it’s about the actual issue,” McMahon said, adding:
Cuomo is sucking up all the oxygen talking about his problems. But behind his request for $500 billion–which is preposterous and just part of an old-fashioned haggle, to ask high–there is a serious issue that his bombast is masking. …read more