Billionaire Bloomberg Vetoes Living Wage Bill

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to live in a better world. That’s why he vetoed a law that would have raised the minimum wage for a measly few hundred or so working New Yorkers to at least $10 an hour.

The bill would have required that developers subsidized by public dollars pay their employees the new rate, which, in New York City, hardly qualifies as a living wage.

Bloomberg defended his action with the standard conservative claim that jobs are best created and kept through the private sector, rather than government, and that companies would leave the city if the government did not allow them to pay low wages.

So we live in a society where the bullies call the shots, the picked-upon cry out for help, and this elected leader simply folds his hands and says no.

The City Council said it would move to override Bloomberg’s veto. Read the mayor’s full statement here. –ARK

Gothamist:

Talking to the press before he signed his veto, Bloomberg explained his feelings:

Those bills — the so-called living and prevailing wage bills — are a throwback to the era when government viewed the private sector as a cash cow to be milked, rather than a garden to be cultivated. In those days, government took the private sector for granted. We cannot afford to go back to those days. We cannot take our economy for granted. And I will not sign legislation — no matter how well-intended — that that hurts job creation and taxpayers.

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