The Streets Were Paved with Gold - Ken Auletta [145]
Goldin, not Beame, would be the messenger of the bad news. Frigand says it was all a joke, and that they would not have issued a release in Goldin’s name. But, he admits, “It’s not out of the question.” The point—as Alexander the Great’s messenger tragically learned—is to take credit for good news and avoid delivering bad news. The game among politicians is well understood by Charles Rosen, the charismatic leader of Co-op City’s 60,000 tenants. “Most politicians want to come out clean,” he says, his voice perched between a squawk and a shriek. “They don’t care who wins, as long as they come out clean. Everyone wants to be there for the bar mitzvahs, just as everybody wants to avoid the funerals.” To take credit and avoid blame.
Avoiding blame has an inglorious tradition in New York politics. Beame obviously cared deeply about avoiding bankruptcy, silently suffering humiliation to avoid it. Yet when it appeared the dreaded announcement had to be made, he preferred not to make it. Hiding behind the slogan “The Second Toughest Job in America,” John Lindsay sought reelection in 1969 by suggesting the city was ungovernable. Robert Wagner, his predecessor, won reelection in 1961 by blaming the failures of his first two terms on “the bosses.” In early 1975, Beame blamed Lindsay, Goldin, Republicans, the press, and then the banks for the fiscal crisis. When the 1977 SEC report blamed him, the Mayor’s remarkable response was that everyone was guilty. Therefore, no one was. Throughout the sixties, New York politicians blamed Vietnam and misplaced national priorities for urban failures. When the war ended, they blamed Richard Nixon, the banks, Washington, Robert Moses, the Sunbelt.
Today, there is a tendency among city politicians and others to suggest that the city is a victim of forces beyond its control. While there is some truth to this claim—no single devil theory explains what happened to New York—New York suffered from a leadership blackout. “I know only two tunes,” Ulysses S. Grant declared. “One of them is ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and the other isn’t.” The dominant tune—the common denominator for most of the fateful local decisions leading to New York’s fiscal crisis—was politics. Simply defined, politics was the absence of leaders who thought about the long-term public interest. They were always thinking about the next election. It didn’t matter whether you sported a Democratic or Republican label, whether you were a liberal or conservative, a banker or union leader—most everyone sang the same tune: Protect your ass. Don’t be a martyr. Worry about the next election. Avoid blame. Take credit.
In New York, good politics was at war with good sense. To pay for their short-term election promises, officials raised business taxes—undermining the city’s long-term economy. More often, they resorted to inflated revenue estimates and borrowing—socking future generations with the tab. When resources were limited but public and union officials wished to show constituents they had delivered, lavish new pension settlements were publicly announced, while, privately, both sides agreed to underfund them. To escape political attack (and continue receiving handsome tax-free profits), the banks and their