The Streets Were Paved with Gold - Ken Auletta [77]
Caught between common sense and his constituency, Moynihan tried to please both. To common sense, he blew the Commission a five-page kiss and continued to make compelling points about past city and federal mistakes. To his constituency, he railed and thundered and vowed never to rest until the federal government surrendered. The press ignored the five-page revision and headlined Moynihan’s charge of murder, as they had once headlined his UN attacks on Uganda’s murderous Idi Amin. Moynihan now had what every politician craves—a torch issue—generating attention but not criticism from constituents. New Yorkers stood up and cheered as their righteous Senator marched off to slay the federal dragon.
Immediately, he dispatched his speech and arithmetic to the White House, requesting that Jimmy Carter stand up and declare himself. Three months later, and somewhat vaguely, Carter did so. “Your statement on the impact of federal programs on the economy of New York,” he wrote Moynihan in September, “has raised a number of important issues that will receive the full attention of this Administration.” With considerable glee, the Senator released this letter, as he later released a string of “Dear Pat” letters from Treasury Secretary Blumenthal, Commerce Secretary Kreps, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors Schultze and domestic policy chief Eizenstat.
The Senator was pleased but not placated. The President’s advisers conceded the need to know more about the impact of federal policies on states, conceded that federal aid formulas did not take into account New York’s higher cost of living. But they specifically did not concede Moynihan’s “gap.” No matter. Moynihan pressed on. “I would contend,” he said on September 27, “that the more we learn about this issue, the more it will emerge that the ’balance of payments’ is indeed a good rough measure of the federal impact on a state.” He insisted that in calculating what New York received from the federal government the feds were arbitrarily apportioning and crediting $14.3 billion of foreign aid and interest on the national debt to New York State. If this sum were subtracted, rather than a surplus, the state’s “balance of payments” would show a $7.4 billion “gap”—down $9.7 billion in seventy-four days.
Moynihan did not relent. He continued to flail away at the book-keepers in the Carter administration. Finally, perceiving it as an academic point, on January 11, 1978, the federal government hoisted the white flag. They would, wrote the Director of the Community Services Administration, no longer credit the $14.3 billion to New York. The title of their reports would be changed from Federal Outlays to Geographic Distribution of Federal Funds. Viewing this as a major victory, Moynihan summoned the press. The front page of the next day’s Times celebrated the victory, somehow ballooning the $7.4 billion “deficit” to $10 billion. The Post and the Daily News applauded, boasting that their gladiator had emerged with proof that New York was being murdered. Senator Moynihan had made his political point.
But did Professor Moynihan? As he sipped his fourth Guinness stout and awaited the arrival of his pea soup, I asked him to explain why his “deficit” figure changed as often as Abe Beame’s. What was the real gap? “The first thing to say,” he surprisingly admitted, “is that it’s not certain how significant this all is.” The Professor had spoken.
Then Senator Moynihan took over, reminding me that the gap was real and important. But he came