Mayor Rudy's NY Economic Record

Deroy Murdock at NRO looks at Giuliani's record on taxes and the city budget, and the record is pretty impressive. While holding spending increases to a low level, he cut many taxes and fees in the city. Unemployment shrank from over 10% to 5.7% on his watch. He shrank the city bureacracy (while adding police & teachers), privatized municpal assets, and turned the city around from losing population to adding almost 700,000 residents.

"“America’s Mayor” cut or killed 23 levies, saving taxpayers $9.8 billion. Giuliani pared Gotham’s top income-tax rate by 20.6 percent... Giuliani defends his supply-side instincts with bracing candor. Asked after September 11 if he would hike taxes, Giuliani called that “a dumb, stupid, idiotic, and moronic thing to do.”In 1995, Giuliani was equally clear on spending: “We must choose between pulling ourselves into the late 20th Century or remaining mired in the tired and abandoned policies of the Great Society.”Giuliani’s expenditure growth averaged 2.9 percent annually, while local inflation between January 1994 and December 2001 averaged 3.6 percent. His FY 1995 budget decreased outlays by 1.6 percent, while his post-9/11 FY 2002 plan lowered appropriations by 2.6 percent."

In comparison, while Romney inherited a tax cut from the previous administration, he raised many of the fees, to the tune of some $500 million. Meanwhile, McCain is pretty strong on holding the line on spending, but not much in faovr of tax cuts, opposing the 2001 and 2003 federal cuts, one of only two Republican Senators to do so (RINO Lincoln Chaffee was the other).

I have to say the case for Rudy is becoming more and more compelling.