GOP donors, push for MTA
Ravitch: It worked in the 1970s
Former MTA chairman Dick Ravitch thinks transit honchos should take a page from New York’s bad old days to save the agency from financial ruin caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ravitch said the city’s wealthiest Republican donors should use their influence to pressure President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell into approving billions in federal aid needed to keep New York’s trains and buses running.
The Democratic-controlled House in May approved $3.9 billion in relief for the MTA as part of a larger pandemic relief package — but it’s since stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate.
“All of these rich real estate guys who gave all this money to McConnell should get off their butts, go to Washington and demand he approve the bill the House passed,” Ravitch told the Daily News.
“All the rich businessmen who gave Trump money should say, ‘You better fund the MTA, because otherwise we’re not going to have public transportation in New York.’
“Without a viable subway system, real estate values are going to sink like crazy,” he said.
Trouble with the city’s economy could also hurt the U.S. Treasury. New Yorkers contributed $22 billion more to the federal government in 2018 than the federal government spent in the state, SUNY’s Rockefeller Institute of Government reported in January.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials Wednesday threatened drastic service cuts and fare hikes if Congress does not sign off on $12 billion in relief funding by the end of 2021. The agency’s finances are reeling from a drastic reduction in transit ridership and tax revenue caused by the pandemic.
Ravitch — who was MTA chairman from 1979 to 1983 — turned to powerful New
York Republicans for help in 1975, when he was a top aide to Gov. Hugh Carey and the city was on the verge of bankruptcy.
After President Gerald
Ford said he would veto a bill to bail out New York — prompting the famous Daily News cover “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD” — Ravitch said he and Carey “convened the top businessmen in New York ... and told them that if we didn’t get help from the federal government, we would have to file bankruptcy petition for the city.”
“All those men in the next week went to Washington,” said Ravitch. “Two played golf with the Secretary of Defense. A bunch went to dinner with the Secretary of Treasury. The rest fanned out and talked to members of Congress.”
“A month later I was in the
Treasury Department working on a letter for a $3 billion line of credit,” he said.
But Ravitch’s old-school playbook might not work in 2020, said Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit that lobbies on behalf of the city’s biggest businesses.
“I think the difficulty is that the nature of lobbying has changed a bit during the pandemic,” said Wylde. “Dick can rail all he wants about the good old days, but the fact is the world has changed.”
Wylde said Trump and Senate Republicans appear unmoved by New York City’s importance to the nation’s economy. “The problem is it’s not a matter of calling in favors with the president,” she said.
The problem, said Wylde, is that Trump doesn’t wish to help New York because he gets little political support in the state. In her view, Trump would prefer to see the city bled dry — “he wants blood,” she said.
MTA officials for their part have rallied local Republicans and business leaders to call for relief from Congress. The agency received $3.9 billion through the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act that passed in March, but those funds dried up last month.
Ravitch doesn’t expect Gov. Cuomo to heed his advice to push Republican big wigs for help, as the two have a tangled history.
Ravitch was forced out of the MTA by Cuomo’s father Gov. Mario Cuomo in 1983 — and says he’s never met the younger Andrew.