Before making the insane choice to back Eliot Spitzer in the Democratic primary for city controller, voters should consider the financial disaster he planned to inflict on New Yorkers as governor.
Spitzer’s budgetary record in his turbulent, fatally scandalous 15 months as the state’s chief executive showed an utter lack of the sober fiscal judgment that is central to serving as steward of the city’s money and as chief adviser to its $140 billion pension funds.
He has further undermined his credibility by showing limited interest in the decidedly unglamorous nuts and bolts of the controller’s office.
New Yorkers are catching on.
Scott Stringer, the little-known Manhattan borough president, has overcome Spitzer’s high name recognition and his own low familiarity to give the one-time presidential dreamer a run for his money. He has done so by being solid and well prepared, and by running on a strong, clean record of public service.
Roll the clock back to the months before Spitzer fled the governor’s office trailing $80,000 to $100,000 in hooker payments. He filed his second budget with a financial plan that, he proclaimed, would help the governor and Legislature reach smooth, sound budget deals.
He chose to peg spending to how much New Yorkers’ income could be expected to grow, and he set the figure at 5.3%. Up the budget would go by that amount every year.
In fact, income growth has averaged less than 2% since then. In fact, the bottom was falling out of the economy even as he made these rosy projections, saddling Gov. David Paterson with billions in deficits to plug.
Had New York stuck to Spitzer’s benchmark, state spending today would be fully 20% higher than it is already — necessitating a whopping tax hike in what’s already the most heavily taxed state in the nation.
As for pension management, Spitzer promises to leverage the funds’ stock ownership in campaigns for corporate reform. But when the Daily News Editorial Board asked for specifics, he could not name a single company that he intended to target.
Meanwhile, he showed ignorance about a basic pension system yardstick: what rate of return the funds expect to earn on their investments. Spitzer guesstimated this crucial number at 7.75% — which, in terms of its impact on the city’s bottom line, was off by, oh, several hundred million dollars.
Stringer, by contrast, knew the correct figure to be 7% — one of many details he commanded. He also quoted the funds’ actual rate of return last year (12.4%), the share of assets in “alternative investments” (13%) and how close the system is to being fully funded to pay its long-term obligations (“about 70%”).
Having served as pension trustee for eight years, Stringer has a keen appreciation for the complexities of the decision-making process and the diplomatic sensitivities necessary to get things done.
“Here you have 58 trustees from five different pension funds,” he said. “If you’re going to get reform, you’re going to have to manage the trustees — both to get their approval and get it passed in Albany.”
Spitzer is asking voters to look past what he frames as personal failings . But if voters do as he asks, and focus on which candidate is more qualified, the choice is still crystal clear: Democrats should go with Stringer for controller.
