Henry J. Stern
May 16, 2007  


The worldwide conference of 46 mayors on climate change, hosted by Mayor Bloomberg, is a splendid example of how someone who is smart, rich and famous, holding an important elected office, can influence public policy beyond his job description and pay grade (in his case, $1 per year).
 
Synergy is the word used to descibe the situation when two factors combine and have greater impact than they would have had standing alone.  In this case, the mayor's wealth and importance, combined with the geographical, financial and cultural status of New York City give him the ability to have a far greater effect on world or national affairs than a less accomplished person coming from a less distinguished neighborhood.
 
The national issue on which our mayor has focused is gun control.  Guns kill about 30,000 Americans each year, primarily in the cities.  In Philadelphia and Newark, the rise in gun murders is now considered an epidemic.

The global issue is climate change.   Both issues are not the conventional disputes between right and left wingers, nor are they redistributionist schemes to improve the lot of the poor at the expense of the rich or  the middle class  The agenda involves protecting human life, both individually and en masse, as does the mayor's unusual intervention into the eating habits of New Yorkers (banning the sale of trans fats, which most people had never head of until they were outlawed; and cutting down on the fat in milk served in public schools) and  his leadership in the anti-tobacco movement, starting with prohibiting smoking in bars and restaurants.  There is an element of Wilsonian moralism in these campaigns, but that is not a complaint.
 
Some people like to look into the future, and wonder whether the mayor's leadership can be enlisted to serve a wider constituency.  It is too early to make a judgment as to whether this will be attempted, much less whether it will happen.  There will be false rumors on the subject, as well as true ones.  One will not know at the time one hears the rumor whether it is true or false. The rumor monger may not know either at the time he spreads the tale.
 
Our judgment is that it is extremely premature to predict in May 2007 what the mayor will do in 2008.  On the other hand, it is not too early at all to make plans for the eventuality of a presidential candidacy.  This work must be carried out in relative secrecy, and vigorously denied, so as not to lose the freshness and innocence that should accompany an effort by a citizen outsider (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) to seize the brass ring.   Sparta must arm, even if one does not know whether there will be war with Athens..
 
We can say that, if the Democratic presidential nominee were Hillary Clinton, there would be less rationale for a Bloomberg candidacy than if it were, say, John Edwards.  If the Republican nominee were Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, the mayor would be more likely to enter the race than if the GOP candidate were Rudy Giuliani.
 
One advantage of the mayor's situation is that his friends and allies will not be hit up for fund raisers, which is a requirement for those candidates who in their earlier years, were less prescient, industrious and fortunate than he was.            
 
It is unfortunate that fully operational presidential at full campaigns now take place in year three of the predecessor's term rather than year four., which one could call the bell lap.     We recall that Senator John F. Kennedy announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in the U.S. Senate Caucus Room in the Capitol on January 2, 1960.  (At that time, association with Washington, D.C. was not regarded as disreputable.  Forty-eight years later, the nomination may well have been  decided by the point in time corresponding to the Kennedy announcement (January 2, 2008).
 
Mike Bloomberg is rich but as sane as one can be in his unusual circumstances.  He can thus be differentiated to some extent from H. Ross Perot and more substantially from Howard Hughes.  There are similarities: all three are essentially self-made men financially and had high regard for their own abilities.   Perot ran for President twice and Hughes loved flying his own plane (by that I mean an aircraft he designed, not merely one he purchased)  Hughes took pleasure in the company of attractive and intelligent women like Katharine Hepburn.  The mayor's girlfriend has both of those fine qualities, and has enjoyed a distinguished career, in both government and finance.  She would make a great president of the World Bank.
 
As New Yorkers, we can take pride in Mayor Bloomberg's efforts and the recognition they have received.  The mayor has tried hard to link the global conference to his congestion pricing initiative, about which we reserve judgment.  Congestion pricing is different from other ideas, though, in that most environmental protection measures come at the expense of the rich, manufacturers and processors of goods, river polluters, gas guzzlers, etc.  This proposal would, among other possibly unanticipated consequences, make it more costly for poor people to travel to rich neighborhoods.
 
 We can see future expansion of restricted traffic areas to create more restricted areas, which may or may not be in the public interest.  Tolling ordinary streets is an intrusion into freedom of movement which may or may not be justified by claimed reductions in pollution and travel time.  It could be an ingenious method of imposing social control under the noble guise of environmental protection.  It is also a harbinger for other anti-car proposals, which might make more sense than this one. 

For example, what about a higher auto use tax in urban areas.  The unpopular imposition of an auto use tax in
California was a major factor in making Arnold Schwarzenegger governor after the incumbent was recalled..   We had an auto use tax in New York City many years ago.  It was widely disliked and consequently repealed, one of the few taxes to die of odium.
 
In another plan, bean counters could tie the auto use tax to miles driven.  When you renew your registration, the state would check the mileage and compute the tax.  Or raise the gasoline tax by computing it as a percentage of the cost of the gas, rather than a fixed number of cents per gallon.  Or restrict so-called pleasure driving, which was done during World War II.  The restriction proposed on congestion will have no significant effect in reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
We believe, to some degree intuitively, that Americans will fight for their cars with the same ferocity they use to defend their guns. There are even more car owners than gun owners.  Although about 42,000 people die on the nation's roads each year, the death toll per mile has declined substantially, due to seat belts, air bags, improvements in auto design, and a crackdown on driving while intoxicated.

The right to drive where you wish is an important part of freedom of movement.  There will be reluctance to limit that right, especially when a financial burden is imposed which necessarily has a greater impact on the poor.
 
The dysfunctional State Legislature, who has the last word on this issue, is not regarded as a force to make things better, since they are bound at the hip to the companies and unions that keep them in the green.  It will be interesting to learn how they deal with proposals that may, or may not, be helpful.  BTW, 2008 is an election year for Albany..
 
There is no end to the new burdens and restrictions that can be imposed in the name of fighting 'global warming',  or as it is now more euphemistically referred to, 'climate change'   If an asteroid were predicted to collide with Earth on a day certain,  we would hopefully generate a better formulated and more effective response than we have had so far in dealing with climate change, a condition which is said by some scientists to be occurring at the same rate on the surface of our celestial neighbor,  Mars, a locale presumably unaffected by whatever has unquestionably made temperatures warmer on Earth.  You can't blame the cavemen for the Ice Age, but that neither proves nor disproves anything about climate today.

 
#374  5.16.07  1388wds