New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said late last week that his city’s budget hinges on the results of the Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs.
This, according to a transcript of a press conference that de Blasio held Thursday. The mayor’s staff published the transcript on The City of New York’s official website.
A reporter named Nolan asked de Blasio about federal stimulus funding for cities and states. The transcript did not identify Nolan’s last name or his media outlet.
“You’ve banked your 2022 budget around getting a lot of aid. What’s the plan if it doesn’t show up?” Nolan asked de Blasio.
“Mitch McConnell’s answer to we need to plow the streets is cities and states should go bankrupt. Like, what’s your plan B if the aid doesn’t show up?”
The mayor said that Joe Biden, if he assumes the oath of office next month, “will work intensely for a real stimulus.”
“We don’t know what the results of the election in Georgia will be. So, what I’m going to do in January is present a budget based on all the facts. When I present that budget, we will know the results of the Georgia election,” de Blasio said.
“And we will know whether there has been a stimulus achieved by the end of this Congress right now. And we’ll present what we got to do. We all know there’s lots of tough options that we can turn to if we have to, but they would have horrible impact on the life of the city. You know, it would take away the services people need and the things we need to recover. But it’s not time to project that yet. It’s time to see what comes of this and then make the adjustments accordingly.”
As reported, U.S. Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) and U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), are on the January 5, 2021 ballot for the U.S. Senate against Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, respectively. The outcome of these two elections will determine whether Republicans or Democrats control the majority of the U.S. Senate.
On Friday de Blasio said, “I like to say very bluntly, our mission is to redistribute wealth.”
Georgia Republican Party spokeswoman Abigail Sigler said in an emailed statement that “Georgia taxpayers should not be forced to bail out liberal state and local politicians for reckless fiscal decisions.”
“Extreme liberals from New York to California to Washington will do everything they can to implement their radical socialist agenda, and they need Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff to do it,” Sigler said.
“Implementing their socialist agenda at every level of government hinges on having Warnock and Ossoff in the Senate. Electing these two radical liberals would take our country down the path towards socialism and forever change the America we know and love. We cannot allow that to happen.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
