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New York Mayor Bill de
Blasio blew a kiss to the crowd gathered outside his Brooklyn home for his
midnight swearing-in ceremony.
NYT pool photo by Seth Wenig.
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De Blasio’s Brave Blue World. By Walter Russell Mead. The American Interest, January 1, 2014.
De Blasio Draws All Liberal Eyes to New York City. By Michael M. Grynbaum. New York Times, December 31, 2013.
“Will Not Wait” on Inequality, de Blasio Tells New York. By Thomas Kaplan. New York Times, January 1, 2014.
Text of Bill de Blasio’s Inauguration Speech. New York Times, January 1, 2014.
Bill de Blasio Inauguration: “March Toward a Fairer, More Just, More Progressive Place.” (Transcript, Audio, Video). WNYC News, January 1, 2014. YouTube.
Mead:
The New York Times has a long piece out
today calling Bill De Blasio’s mayorship as the cutting edge of a new wave of
liberal progressivism sweeping through American cities:
The
elevation of an assertive, tax-the-rich liberal to the nation’s most prominent
municipal office has fanned hopes that hot-button causes like universal
prekindergarten and low-wage worker benefits — versions of which have been
passed in smaller cities — could be aided by the imprimatur of being proved
workable in New York.
Yet the
Times does not refer even once to the
gravest challenge that the liberal agenda faces in urban America: the conflict
of interest between unionized workers and the consumers of the services they
provide.
This
conflict manifests itself in all kinds of ways: the rising cost of operating
transit systems, of infrastructure improvements, of school quality and
governance and perhaps most fundamentally in the tradeoff between paying the
unrealistic pensions negotiated in past years and funding services ranging from
police to education for current residents.
We wish
Mayor De Blasio every success, but we hope he is smarter about the problems he
faces than the cocoon-spinning NYT.
Inauguration speech starts at 1:01:40 in video.
De Blasio excerpts:
From
Jacob Riis to Eleanor Roosevelt to Harry Belafonte — who we are so honored to
have with us here today — it was New Yorkers who challenged the status quo, who
blazed a trail of progressive reform and political action, who took on the
elite, who stood up to say that social and economic justice will start here and
will start now.
It’s
that tradition that inspires the work we now begin. A movement that sees the
inequality crisis we face today, and resolves that it will not define our
future. Now I know there are those who think that what I said during the
campaign was just rhetoric, just “political talk” in the interest of getting
elected. There are some who think now, as we turn to governing – well, things
will just continue pretty much like they always have.
So let
me be clear. When I said we would take dead aim at the Tale of Two Cities, I
meant it. And we will do it. I will honor the faith and trust you have placed
in me. And we will give life to the hope of so many in our city. We will
succeed as One City. We know this won’t be easy; It will require all that we
can muster. And it won’t be accomplished only by me; It will be accomplished by
all of us — those of us here today, and millions of everyday New Yorkers in
every corner of our city.
You
must continue to make your voices heard. You must be at the center of this
debate. And our work begins now.
. . . .
We will
reform a broken stop-and-frisk policy, both to protect the dignity and rights
of young men of color, and to give our brave police officers the partnership
they need to continue their success in driving down crime. We won’t wait. We’ll
do it now.
. . . .
Of
course, I know that our progressive vision isn’t universally shared. Some on
the far right continue to preach the virtue of trickle-down economics. They
believe that the way to move forward is to give more to the most fortunate, and
that somehow the benefits will work their way down to everyone else. They sell
their approach as the path of “rugged individualism.”
But
Fiorello La Guardia — the man I consider to be the greatest Mayor this city has
ever known — put it best. He said: “I, too, admire the ‘rugged individual,’ but
no ‘rugged individual’ can survive in the midst of collective starvation.”
So
please remember: we do not ask more of the wealthy to punish success. We do it
to create more success stories. And we do it to honor a basic truth: that a strong
economy is dependent on a thriving school system. We do it to give every kid a
chance to get their education off on the right foot, from the earliest age,
which study after study has shown leads to greater economic success, healthier
lives, and a better chance of breaking the cycle of poverty.
We do
it to give peace of mind to working parents, who suffer the anxiety of not
knowing whether their child is safe and supervised during those critical hours
after the school day ends, but before the workday is done. And we do it because
we know that we must invest in our city, in the future inventors and C.E.O.s
and teachers and scientists, so that our generation – like every generation
before us – can leave this city even stronger than we found it.
Our
city is no stranger to big struggles — and no stranger to overcoming them.
New
York has faced fiscal collapse, a crime epidemic, terrorist attacks, and
natural disasters. But now, in our time, we face a different crisis – an inequality
crisis. It’s not often the stuff of banner headlines in our daily newspapers.
It’s a quiet crisis, but one no less pernicious than those that have come
before.
Its
urgency is read on the faces of our neighbors and their children, as families struggle
to make it against increasingly long odds. To tackle a challenge this daunting,
we need a dramatic new approach — rebuilding our communities from the
bottom-up, from the neighborhoods up. And just like before, the world will
watch as we succeed. All along the way, we will remember what makes New York,
New York.
A city
that fights injustice and inequality — not just because it honors our values,
but because it strengthens our people. A city of five boroughs — all created
equal. Black, white, Latino, Asian, gay, straight, old, young, rich, middle
class, and poor. A city that remembers our responsibility to each other — our
common cause — is to leave no New Yorker behind.
That’s
the city that you and I believe in. It’s the city to which my grandparents were
welcomed from the hills of Southern Italy, the city in which I was born, where
I met the love of my life, where Chiara and Dante were raised.
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. It begins today.
Thank
you, and God bless the people of New York City!
