Leftist Millionaire NYC Mayor Gives himself $33,000 Raise
Leftists claim to hate tax cuts, but they use every tax advantage they can take.
And then these disingenuous fight for their raises, while claiming to give back. Case in point, Mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio.
According to the New York Post,
Mayor de Blasio will get a fat 15 percent raise when his second term begins Monday – bumping his salary from $225,000 to $258,750 a year.
The $33,750 boost is more than the annual salary of a full-time worker making the city’s roughly $13 minimum wage.
Throw in a free residence, free transportation, and free food and that salary doesn’t look that bad, even in New York.
How would you like to live in a mansion with servants, be driven around in a limo by a chauffeur, eat the finest foods and have a quarter mil extra to throw around?
But there’s more. As according to Newsday, the couple also made $106,000 in rental income two homes they own in Park Slope, Brooklyn. But they claimed a loss of $6,237 after factoring in expenses including taxes, mortgage interest and depreciation.
Not bad, particularly considering at some point de Blasio will sell his rental properties for millions.
But some in New York believe what the mayor makes is way too much.
“Oh, that’s way, way too much money for the mayor,” said David Schermerhorn of VOCAL New York, a group that works with low-income New Yorkers. “That’s corporate America money.”
Schermerhorn is right. The mayor’s job is public service. It’s not meant for people to get rich.
Further, de Blasio claims to be a “progressive”. Why not accept the $70,000 the Left says is the maximum amount affecting “happiness”?
Nevertheless, De Blasio authorized his cushy new salary two years ago by signing legislation that gave city pols a retroactive raise starting January 2016. So 2018 will be a boom for the de Blasios as they get that windfall of the mayor’s creation.
And look at how magnanimous de Blasio was early on in his career, according to the article.
But he refused to accept any pay hike during his first term because he convened the advisory commission that recommended higher salaries for the city’s elected officials. When he signed the City Council legislation in February 2016, he said raising the mayor’s salary “is appropriate for the next term.”
And, de Blasio isn’t the only one getting a fat raise.
City Council members went above the recommended raise, as their salaries will go from $112,500 to $148,500. It must be nice to vote yourself a 32 percent raise.
Well at least de Blasio didn’t pull a Bloomberg. De Blasio’s billionaire predecessor Mayor Bloomberg took $1 a year in pay. But Bloomberg made his money up elsewhere, milking New York City taxpayers.
Understand that when Bloomberg became mayor of NYC, his net worth was about $4 billion. When he gave up being mayor, his net worth exceeded $33 billion. Below are the dates and net worth of Bloomberg with links to Forbes:
1996 – $1 billion
1997 – $1.3 billion
1998 – $2 billion
1999- $2.5 billion
2000- $4 billion
2001- $4 billion
2002- $4.8 billion
2003- $4.9 Billion
2004- $5 Billion
2005- $5.1 Billion
2006- $5.3 Billion
2007- $11.5 billion
2008- $20 billion
2009- $16 billion (interim March figure)*
2009- $17.5 billion (A year of $105 million in direct campaign expenditures, plus. .)**
2010- $18.0 billion (Bloomberg surpassed by David H. Koch)***
2011- $19.5 billion
Not bad growth for a man who had a full-time job.
Given Bloomberg’s success, I’m not surprised de Blasio wants another shot. He’s got a lot of fleecing of the public left to do.
