Ducking his duty

This post is quoted entirely from the NYPost editorial :

It's your fault too, Mike

Mayor Bloomberg has a lot of nerve criticizing Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch's plan to pile up more debt to deal with the state's fiscal crisis.

"I think that doesn't pass the laugh test," he said Wednesday, referring to Ravitch's plan to let Albany, in part, borrow its way out of its $9.2 billion fiscal hole -- in exchange, supposedly, for "tough" new measures to impose fiscal discipline in the future.

And indeed it doesn't.

But whipping out the credit card to dodge short-term pain is hardly a new concept for Albany.

Or Mike, for that matter.

Back in 2003, Hizzoner got Albany to borrow $2.5 billion and use the cash to pay off city debts that were coming due over the next five years. The state would then repay those funds in payments stretching over the next three decades.

The bitterest irony is that the $2.5 billion was supposed to be the city's last payments on bonds issued by the Municipal Assistance Corp. to rescue the city from the '70s fiscal crises.

In other words, Bloomberg ensured that taxpayers in 2034 would be paying off expenses incurred by Mayor John Lindsay in the 1960s.

Any wonder that pols see no problem in ducking their duty again?

Sure, Mike has found religion now that the principal problem is somebody else's.

A little humility is in order, though.