Mayor Eric Adams is no newbie, so he should be fully aware of the Law of Holes. It’s a simple concept, advising those who find themselves in an unwanted hole to immediately drop the shovel, climb out and find a new strategy.
Assuming the mayor knows about the law, his refusal to follow its common-sense reasoning reflects something other than ignorance. Foolish pride? Bad judgment?
The subject is the city’s migrant crisis. Despite inviting tens of thousands of illegal border crossers to come here and spending $4.6 million of taxpayer money EVERY DAY to house, care for, feed and educate just some of them, Adams still won’t admit he made a mistake.
Instead, he’s compounding it by using a bigger shovel to expand the hole. There’s no other way to describe his latest idea, which moves city efforts off an emergency basis and institutionalizes them.
No help from Joe
On Tuesday, he created a new agency to deal with the crisis. Dubbed the Office of Asylum Seeker Operations, it will open an around-the-clock processing center for new arrivals and move existing services out of Midtown’s Port Authority Bus Terminal.
Part of the plan aims to get other cities to take some of the estimated 50,000 migrants already in New York. The mayor should expect to have as much success with that effort as he has in getting Washington and Albany to help the city pay for the 31,000 living in municipal facilities, including pricey Midtown hotels.
Which is to say, next to zero.
His budget director waved the white flag Monday, saying Adams did not expect to get significant help from President Biden despite a projected migrant price tag of $4.2 billion over two fiscal years.
So even though Adams did the president a favor by not pushing him to close the border, he gets bupkis in return. With friends like Biden, who needs enemies?
Meanwhile, Gov. Kathy Hochul is offering money with one hand and taking it with the other. She is offering to pay 29% of the migrant costs, while demanding the city pay $500 million more for mass transit and also increase its already massive school spending because of a state mandate requiring smaller class sizes.
Despite all that uncertainty, plus a costly new labor agreement and warnings from fiscal monitors about deficits as far as the eye can see, the mayor went ahead with what he calls “The Road Forward.”
Soft on lawbreakers
His press release was littered with compassion for the migrants, who broke American law to enter the nation without permission.
Most, coached by activist, open-border lawyers, claimed asylum when arrested, knowing they don’t qualify because they did not suffer religious, ethnic or political persecution but also that they could stay for years until their cases are adjudicated.
They came for a better life, and while that’s understandable and would be commendable if they obeyed the law and waited their turn as tens of millions of others did before them, it is a mystery why they should be praised and encouraged.
Yet here was Adams, erasing the line between legal and illegal immigrants by declaring that “New Yorkers know that the asylum seeker of today is the citizen, the leader, and the innovator of tomorrow, and I’m proud that New York City is leading the way, turning a crisis into an opportunity for progress for the entire country.”
A deputy mayor was quoted as boasting that “the city has worked to center our services with dignity, respect, and care for every individual, family, and child.”
Touching. But is there a taxpaying citizen who believes the city treats him or her with “dignity, respect and care”? The question answers itself.
Compassion, time and dollars are finite, and, intentionally or not, City Hall has set up a competition for resources between residents and newcomers.
Midtown cops, for example, are often called to the hotels where migrants are housed to settle disputes, some violent, and monitor demonstrations. Time spent there is time not available elsewhere.
This is not a minor, temporary problem. Adams, by adding a new, unlimited demand on services, is putting his mayoralty on the line. He has yet to solve any of the major problems he inherited, some of which are growing worse.
He was elected to save the city from the scourge of crime, and has made real progress, especially in reducing murders and shootings. But he’s got a long way to go before most people feel safe enough to walk the streets and ride the subways.
Drain on city
Bodega owners and others are beside themselves over rampant robberies and organized shoplifting. Stores are closing and many merchants are hiring private security guards because they can’t count on cops to protect them and their customers.
The public dollars spent on caring for migrants could have been spent to hire more police officers and speed up the crackdown on lawbreakers and get more illegal guns off the streets faster.
Or consider the public school system, which appears to be collapsing. Total enrollment has shrunk dramatically and upwards of 40% of those signed up for classes are absent for a month or more, meaning they are learning next to nothing.
And what of the nearly 60,000 homeless people already living in city shelters, some of whom complain the migrants are treated better than they are? Who gets first dibs when more permanent housing is available?
Here’s a novel idea: The mayor could take a big chunk of that $4.2 billion of migrant money and give a massive tax cut to the people who live and work here and pay taxes.
Any or all those ideas might help stem the tide of those fleeing the city, an exodus that endangers Gotham’s future. But anybody who is thinking of leaving because of crime, poor schools, the high cost of living and low quality of life is not likely to be persuaded to stay because the mayor is turning the city into a sanctuary for the whole world.
Quite the opposite. Adams is giving them another reason to head for the exits.
Pro-biz Texas, Fla. win race for Chase
Bloomberg News interviewed Jamie Dimon about JPMorgan Chase’s expansion in Florida and Texas.
“We love Florida, we’re growing in Florida left and right,” said Dimon, the bank’s chief executive officer.
Bloomberg notes that Morgan, Goldman Sachs and other financial institutions are shifting operations to Florida as employees and clients gravitate “toward its low taxes, warm weather and the perceived pro-business stance of its Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.”
Texas and Florida “like business, they want you to come,” Dimon said. “We now have more employees in Texas than in New York state. It shouldn’t have been that way but Texas loves you being there.”
For Pete’s sake
Reader Jim Rowbotham suggests a new gig for Pete Buttigieg, the overmatched secretary of transportation. He writes: “President Biden should create a Department of Identity and appoint Mayor Pete Secretary. Structure and responsibilities TBD.”
