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Edited on Fri Aug-01-03 09:28 AM by Skinner
W'S GIFT TO N.Y.C.
By NICOLE GELINAS
August 1, 2003 -- NEW York City's fiscal outlook is less bleak than it was six months ago. But don't thank your local and state politicians. Thank President Bush. In a shrewd move ahead of next year's Republican National Convention in the Big Apple, Bush has already designed and implemented a federal cash aid package targeted to New York City: the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief and Reconciliation Act of 2003, otherwise known (around here) as the hated Bush tax cuts.
If you've noticed that New York's restaurants and bars are busier than they were three months ago, it's because the securities industry, after three years of drought, is starting to drip a bit of money into the parched mouths of bankers, stockbrokers and their assistants. Profits at investment houses are finally creeping up from 2002 troughs, and the results are quietly becoming evident.
Securities firms have ceased their jobs bloodletting and are awarding modest raises to workers for the first time since 2000. While local unemployment is still high, rising equity prices and renewed underwriting activity on Wall Street should mean more jobs for New Yorkers, according to data released this week by the Securities Industry Association (SIA). The SIA predicts that Wall Street gains will push New York City out of its three-year-old recession within the next five months.
Dragging Gotham from its fiscal quicksand is an unwelcome rescuer: the federal tax cuts that President Bush signed into law two months ago. It's too early to assess the long-term effects of Bush's dividend and capital gains tax cuts (although not too early for Dems to say that the cuts aren't working). But the short-term effects on the stock market are clear — and "more than met expectations," the SIA said.
EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT --------------------
Is this editorial full of shit?
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