All Eyes on New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, America's Leading Progressive

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/01/06-3



Reporting on the significance of Bill de Blasio becoming mayor of New York may have led some to fear that the Soviet Union was being reincarnated in the country's largest city. While De Blasio is certainly to the left of many leaders of the America's Democratic party, he is certainly no radical seeking to overthrow capitalism. Furthermore, even if he did plan to seize the means of production, his ability to do so as the mayor of a major city would be quite limited.

Nonetheless, there are many areas where the mayor of New York can have a substantial impact. The top of this list would be education policy. De Blasio's predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, was a vocal and visible supporter of the education reform movement. While this movement has produced big profits for corporations in the testing business and made some policy entrepreneurs rich and famous, it has not done much to improve education for inner city kids.

De Blasio's pick for schools chancellor, Carmen Farina, has decades of experience in the New York school system as a teacher, principal, and administrator. She apparently intends to scale back the intense focus on testing of the Bloomberg administration. She is also likely to work more cooperatively with the teachers union. If this path produces positive results, it will be an important example for other school districts.

There are other areas where de Blasio could try innovative policies. The fact that a bloated financial sector can be a drag on growth (pdf) is getting increasing attention. Even the International Monetary Fund has advocated higher taxes on the financial industry (pdf) to reduce the amount of waste in the sector.

[Nye Bevan]

1. Expect to watch Hillary cosy up to de Blasio more and more as 2016 approaches.

Her biggest fear is a credible challenge from the left of the party, and being buddies with "America's Leading Progressive" can only help her in this regard.