The New York City Fat Issue

Becky Akers reports:

The City gorges on a $52.2 billion budget, an $80 billion pension fund, and no less than 250,000 employees. Not only do we pay a mayor, we pay deputy mayors, too. And each of the City’s five boroughs has a president on the dole as well. How do they earn their keep? "Borough presidents advise the Mayor on issues relating to each borough, comment on all land use items in their borough, advocate borough needs in the annual municipal budget process, administer a small discretionary budget for projects within each borough, appoint Community Boards, and chair the Borough Boards." Call me naïve, but I bet if they didn’t show up for "work" one day, the City wouldn’t crash to a halt.

The roll call continues through a comptroller, a public advocate, 51 council members and their staffs, 59 community boards with up to 50 small-fry politicians each, and the City’s 101 agencies (everything from "Administrative Trials and Hearings, Office of" and "Anti-Graffiti Task Force, Mayor's" through the "Equal Employment Practices Commission" and the "Fund to Advance NYC" to the "United Nations, Consular Corps and Protocol, Commission for the" and the "Workforce Investment Board").

Which brings us back to the lard at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH). Unless we’re living in an Orwell novel, why does this agency even exist? Here’s the City’s ambitious answer: "The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene [DOHMH] protects and promotes the health and mental well being of all New Yorkers." Quite a few folks might charge the Department with dereliction on the "mental well being," at least.

That's a whole of money being extorted.