Introduction

It seems that every day a reporter – no doubt after seeing one of Mike Bloomberg’s gauzy 90 second campaign ads – asks me some form of the question: “What’s wrong with this mayor?  Why should we change mayors?”

But recently more and more New Yorkers have been asking the other version of the same question: “What is wrong with this mayor?”

Letting America Down

I heard it a lot this weekend after the Mayor declared that New York had “let America down” because his boondoggle West Side stadium was rejected.

Can you imagine any mayor saying we let America down?

We, the city that contributes tens of billions more in taxes than we ever see in return?

We, the city that showed the nation how to rise up from the most devastating adversity?

We let America down?

The Mayor is a decent man, but he should apologize to New Yorkers.

Sometimes in politics such statements are called gaffs.  But in the case of Mike Bloomberg, they show an insight into how out of touch he is with the lives of so many New Yorkers.

Mike Bloomberg believes that everything is fine. But millions of New Yorkers disagree.  This Mayor is simply not talking to the middle class and those struggling to make it into the middle class.

That is what this campaign is about.  Who is going to speak to those New Yorkers?

Taxes

Middle class New Yorkers are paying more and more in taxes and they are feeling the squeeze.  How do you think they feel when the Mayor – who promised not to raise taxes – says “If you think taxes are too high, I would argue you're probably a little bit out-of step with businesses that are coming here." (At March 1, 2005 Crains Breakfast, NY Sun March 2)

When I proposed a 10% tax cut for all New Yorkers making $150,000 or less and a dramatic reduction in city spending, the Mayor’s spokesman actually rose this week to argue that higher property taxes where good, calling them “money in the bank.”

Even a Republican councilman on Staten Island criticized the idea that higher taxes were somehow a boon for middle class New Yorkers.

What’s wrong with Mike?  He just doesn’t understand the middle class is over-taxed.

Education

We have heard a lot from the Mayor recently about the test scores.  But to middle class New Yorkers and those striving to make it into the middle class, the schools are hardly something to be smug or satisfied with.

You see for me and my family, like so many other families of New York, the public schools were the great equalizer.  The formula worked: experienced dedicated teachers, a no nonsense discipline policy, and a curriculum that stressed the basics.

Despite the expensive media blitz by the Mayor, parents are simply not impressed with a 50% failure rate among 4th graders and an exodus of the most senior teachers, like my mother.

Go ahead.  Ask them if they are satisfied.

I have proposed a plan that would direct more funds into the classroom, streamline the discipline process, and give our teachers a raise.

Catholic Schools and Yeshivas

But I’m also going to do something that this Mayor has never done – stand up for our Catholic schools.

The parish school is so much a part of the very definition of so many of our city’s neighborhoods.  Although they attract far fewer students then they did in the past – 40 years ago more than 220,000 kids, today about 61,000 – these schools are still a moral, social, and educational center for our communities.  And for our overcrowded public schools they are also an escape valve.

So when the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens announced they were closing 26 elementary and middle schools, I called it a crisis.

The Mayor was worse than silent.  Rather than move heaven and earth to keep these schools open.  Rather than convene philanthropists and city leaders to save the schools that teach more than 7,000 kids.  Rather than jump into action the Mayor seemed to cheer their demise.

The Mayor on his radio show said, “I’m optimistic that [the department of education] will be able to get some more class room seats out of this.”

Can you imagine the message that sent to the middle class families who attend these schools?  Can you imagine how the residents of those neighborhoods felt?

I’ll tell you, because they told me.  Mike Bloomberg doesn’t get it.

Maybe it’s because it is a Brooklyn and Queens problem or maybe because there is no billionaire or Olympic site attached to it, but the Mayor has simply failed to see this.

As mayor I will do what I did in the face of this crisis. Just as I convened planning sessions with the parents, brought in financial experts and private philanthropy groups, as mayor I will treat the challenges faced by our Catholic schools and yeshivas as a challenge to our whole city.

Health Care

In addition to the high cost of living in New York and the challenge of schools headed in the wrong direction, many middle class new Yorkers and those striving to make it into the middle class have another thing that keeps them up at night – the high cost and the inaccessibility of health insurance.

1.8 million New Yorkers are without health insurance.  Of them more than half are fully employed.  They look into the eyes of their children over breakfast in the morning knowing that they are one health care emergency away from financial collapse.

What does the Mayor say to these New Yorkers?

Believe it or not he calls them lucky.

“Medical care in this city is arguably one of the few services you can point to anyplace in the world where the poor get better services than the wealthy,” the Mayor said.  (New York Post, 1/5/05)

I have a plan to help these neighbors of mine.  It involves reducing Medicaid costs by $500 million by computerizing our processing; enrolling more New Yorkers by doing what other cities do – helping parents to enroll school children in programs like child health plus and improving efforts to organize small businesses into insurance buying groups.

Ground Zero and Governors Island

And then there is the stadium.

Look I am glad that the Mayor finally came around to including Willets Point, Queens in our Olympic bid.  Better late than never.  I stand ready to work shoulder to shoulder with him to make it a reality.

But what about Ground Zero?  What about Governors Island?

Three and a half years after Bloomberg was sworn in pledging to rebuild New York, Ground Zero remains the worst of all reminders of what happens when a mayor focuses too much on where a javelin will be thrown in 2012 and forgets our commitment to those we lost in 2001.

And two-and-a-half years after we got a once in a lifetime chance to develop 172 acres on a breathtaking island a mere 800 yards from Wall Street, our businessman mayor can’t even figure out how to issue a request for proposals to develop what former Senator Pat Moynihan called “a sixth borough.”

I’ve outlined my plan – a world class venue for special events, cultural and educational happenings, research and tourism.

What Democrats Must Do to Win

When New Yorkers see these obvious gaps in the Mayor’s attention they say: “What is wrong with Mayor Bloomberg?”

Which brings me back to the very different version of that question that so many in the media are fond of asking.

He is a billionaire.  He is advertising every day that everything is fine.  He thinks that it is inevitable that sooner or later he will be able to convince New Yorkers that it is true.

Well I am here to tell you that there is a whole city out there of middle class New Yorkers and those striving to make it into the middle class who are desperate for someone to talk to them about the issues they face.

They are desperate for someone to recognize how high their taxes are.  They are searching for someone to fight to improve their schools.  They are tossing and turning at night thinking about how badly we need leadership to improve our health care in New York.

When the Mayor fails to hear these voices he deserves not to be reelected and he will not be.  Plain and simple.

But I say this to my Democratic friends.  It is not enough just to critique and criticize the Mayor.  We must learn from 12 years of lost elections that if we want to win we must speak to the middle class of our city – and they want a real alternative vision.  We must give it to them in concrete and specific terms.

If Democrats don’t address the concerns of the middle class and those striving to make it into the middle class we don’t deserve to win.

That is why I have given 8 policy addresses, published a book of 40 ideas for our city and issued detailed plans for ending hunger, lowering taxes and expanding health care.

Not platitudes.  Not empty critiques.  Real solutions.

But there is another reason why I am confident that I am the person to address the concerns of these New Yorkers.  I am one of them.

I grew up in Brooklyn, the great grandson of an immigrant fur cutter and the grandson of an elevator repairman in the Plaza Hotel.

My mother just retired after 33 years as a school teacher and my dad was the president of our block association and hung a shingle outside our house for his law practice.

I was a city councilman for 7 years and I’m in my fourth term in the United States Congress standing for mayor of the greatest city on earth.

I know and understand the aspirations of the middle class because that is where I came from.  

If you think that this campaign is about who’s got the most money or who is leading in the polls in June, you are wrong.

This is a campaign about whether you believe that everything is just fine or if you believe that for many in the middle class and those striving to make it there, there is a lot of work to be done.

My name is Anthony Weiner, and I am ready to do that work.