Romney Campaign Press Release - Mayor Giuliani Left New York City With "Enormous Deficits"

"Mayor Bloomberg Vowed... He Won't Leave His Successor In City Hall With The Same Financial Mess He Inherited From Rudy Giuliani When He First Took Office." (Michael Saul, "I Won't Leave A Mess, Says Mike," [New York] Daily News, 6/2/07)

FACT: The New York City Budget Grew More Than 37% Under Mayor Giuliani:

According To The Nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission, New York City's Budget Grew 37.6% Over The Course Of Mayor Giuliani's Two Terms. "Over the course of two terms, the Giuliani administration increased City expenditures $12 billion, or 37.6 percent, in nominal dollars." ("Rudolph W. Giuliani's Fiscal Record As Mayor Of New York City," Citizens Budget Commission, 6/5/07)

- Mayor Giuliani's First Fiscal Budget In 1994 Was $31.93 Billion. ("Rudolph W. Giuliani's Fiscal Record As Mayor Of New York City," Citizens Budget Commission, 6/5/07)

- Mayor Giuliani's Last Fiscal Budget In 2002 Was $43.93 Billion. ("Rudolph W. Giuliani's Fiscal Record As Mayor Of New York City," Citizens Budget Commission, 6/5/07)

FACT: The City's Budget Gap More Than Doubled Under Mayor Giuliani:

According To The Citizens Budget Commission, Mayor Giuliani Left A Projected Budget Gap Of $3.1 Billion, More Than Twice The Size Of The Gap Left By Mayor David Dinkins. "At the time of his last adopted budget, for fiscal year 2002, Mayor Giuliani left his successor with a projected budget gap of $3.1 billion for fiscal year 2003. In comparison, at the time of Mayor Dinkins' last adopted budget, Mayor Giuliani inherited a projected budget gap of $1.3 billion for fiscal year 1995." ("Rudolph W. Giuliani's Fiscal Record As Mayor Of New York City," Citizens Budget Commission, 6/5/07)

According To The Nonpartisan Annenberg Public Policy Center, The Multi-Billion Dollar Deficit Mayor Giuliani Left Did Not Include Costs Associated With 9/11. "In addition, the ad's claim that Giuliani turned the budget deficit he inherited into a surplus, while true enough, ignores the fact that he also left a multibillion-dollar deficit for his successor, not including costs associated with 9/11." ("Giuliani's Tax Puffery," FactCheck.org Website, http://www.factcheck.org/, 7/27/07)

FACT: Mayor Michael Bloomberg Inherited A City Budget Rife With Problems:

The Final Giuliani Budget, Adopted In June 2001, Depleted Surplus Funds Creating Massive Deficits In Future Years When There Would Be No Surplus Funds To Close The Gap. "The budget adopted for fiscal year 2002 in June 2001 contained one egregious fiscal policy error and one understandable misjudgment. The error was to allocate $2.5 billion of a $2.8 billion accumulated surplus, generated when revenues exceeded projections in a booming economy, to support operating expenditures during fiscal year 2002. By using the surplus to support ongoing expenses, City officials were creating a budget problem in the next year when the surplus was no longer available." ("Managing The Budget In The Bloomberg Administration," Citizens Budget Commission, 12/7/01)

Mayor Giuliani's Spending At The End Of His Tenure Forced Mayor Bloomberg To Take Drastic Measures To Pay The City's Bills. "[T]he economy cooled near the end of Mr. Giuliani's second term, and he spent most of the roughly $3 billion surplus he had accumulated to balance his final budget, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2002. ... Faced with such a huge deficit, which continued to grow as the economic aftershocks of the attacks continued and the costs of some of the Giuliani administration's policies came due, the next mayor, Mr. Bloomberg, was forced to take the extraordinary steps of borrowing to pay for operating expenses, cutting programs, and raising property taxes by 18.5 percent to balance the budget." (Michael Cooper, "Giuliani Boasts Of Big Surplus," The New York Times, 8/25/07)

Mayor Bloomberg Vowed Not To Leave His Successor With The Same "Enormous Deficits" He Inherited From Mayor Giuliani. "Mayor Bloomberg vowed yesterday he won't leave his successor in City Hall with the same financial mess he inherited from Rudy Giuliani when he first took office. And although Bloomberg never mentioned his predecessor by name, it was clear he was referring to the 2008 Republican presidential candidate. 'I'm determined that when I leave the city, we won't have, my successor, the first year in office, won't have enormous deficits to deal with,' Bloomberg said on his WABC-AM radio show." (Michael Saul, "I Won't Leave A Mess, Says Mike," [New York] Daily News, 6/2/07)

FACT: Independent Experts Have Blasted Mayor Giuliani's Fiscal Management Of New York City:

In 2001, The Citizens Budget Commission Gave The Giuliani Administration A "D" For Budgeting Responsibility. "D: The City has done a poor job of addressing its long term structural fiscal imbalance, resulting in large gaps between planned spending and expected revenues in future years." (The Citizens Budget Commission, "New York City Budget Report Card - Fiscal Year 2002," 8/01)

The Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow E.J. McMahon: "'9/11 was unimaginable to everyone. Before that, he [Giuliani] had built up a significant budget gap, had left a significant fiscal headache for his successor,' said McMahon, of the Manhattan Institute. 'He basically took the surplus that he had accumulated in the previous five years and spent it all in his last year's budget. He did not leave things tidy and manageable.'" (Melanie Lefkowitz, "The Odd Couple: Assessing The Mayors," [New York] Newsday, 7/9/07)

The Annenberg Public Policy Center: "Giuliani's radio ad also asserts that he 'turned a 2.3 billion deficit into a multibillion-dollar surplus' in New York. Well, not if you're comparing what he inherited with what he left, which would be a logical way to look at it. When he took office in 1994, Giuliani was indeed facing a $2.3 billion deficit for the next fiscal year. But Giuliani's last budget, issued in May 2001 – before 9/11 – for fiscal 2002, projected a deficit of nearly $2.8 billion in fiscal 2003, the first budget year the new mayor would face. The IBO estimated the deficit would be even larger, about $3.3 billion." ("Giuliani's Tax Puffery," FactCheck.org Website, http://www.factcheck.org/, 7/27/07)