NY City mayor seeks further budget cuts
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Friday said he was asking city agencies to trim spending further and said a modest boost in revenues would be needed to close next year's $2.3 billion deficit.
The mayor, speaking on local WOR radio, did not specify how much would be needed to close next year's deficit. The city has already slashed spending by a total of 10 percent for this year and next year.
Bloomberg also commented on the problems that have gripped financial markets, saying that the U.S. financial regulatory system could be greatly simplified and would cost taxpayers much less if it reflected "today's world" instead of the way banks and brokerages operated 50 years ago.
"I think that you don't change regulation overnight," Bloomberg said, drawing a distinction between structural reforms and temporary rules like the new ban the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission enacted on short sales of financial companies.
Both the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates should articulate a "grand vision" of their post-January plans, Bloomberg said, adding that the federal government should also cut spending.
"We're still spending money we don't have. We have trillions of dollars of deficits, and we haven't addressed health care," he said, adding that improving roads and bridges should be another U.S. priority.
Bloomberg, asked if he wanted the Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, or the Republican contender, Sen. John McCain, to appoint him as U.S. treasury secretary, pledged to serve out his second and last term that ends in January 2010.
(Reporting by Joan Gralla in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)
