Bloomberg on cruise control?

From the Daily News:

Mayor Bloomberg has a trickle-down theory of New York's economy: Spend money to make money, and make sure the people at the top have money to spend.

He believes in generating jobs through big projects like rebuilding Coney Island and Willets Point - subsidizing them with tax breaks and public money if necessary.

At the same time, he protects rich New Yorkers from any more tax hikes, saying their big spending creates jobs for everyone else.

Just 18,000 New Yorkers pay half the city's income taxes, Bloomberg said last week, while half of New Yorkers pay no income taxes at all.

"If you hurt, for example, our financial services industry, it's the people at the bottom ... that are going to get laid off," Bloomberg said.

Now he's being challenged on several fronts. The opposition comes from different sides of the spectrum - and isn't always consistent - but agrees that just because Bloomberg dominates the budget process doesn't mean he's right.

Call it the trickle-up theory.

"If nobody can show that trickle-down theory works," said Controller John Liu, "we should get rid of it."

The conservative Citizens Budget Commission slammed Bloomberg's $2 billion third-term economic development plan, saying there's no evidence it generates new business.

The liberal Fiscal Policy Institute slammed Bloomberg's reliance on Wall Street, saying he should focus on bringing up the subpoverty-level wages of the poorest working New Yorkers.

"Relying on better wages for every New Yorker makes a lot more sense as an economic recovery strategy than waiting for Wall Street bonuses to trickle down," wrote FPI economist James Parrott.

From the NY Post:

From terrorism to Wall Street "reforms" to the health-care takeover to a new pact on grading teachers, New York is under an unprecedented siege of financial and security risks.

While Bloomberg's position is clear on most -- he doesn't like parts of the bank bill and wants more money for anti-terrorism -- his halting, piecemeal approach is proving to be no match for the wave of assaults.

At this critical moment in New York's history, the mayor gives the impression he is operating on cruise control. His budget was mushy and uninspired, reinforcing fears he's content to drift through his third term.

With Gotham desperately needing a rallying cry to fight back, Bloomberg leads quietly, often privately, and occasionally not at all. The result is a public vacuum that, while others try to fill it, is leaving the city more vulnerable to Washington, Albany and, yes, terrorists.