Mayor de Blasio likes to portray himself as a selfless promoter of do-gooder liberal causes. But scratch the surface and it’s quite apparent there are ulterior motives behind all of his so-called “progressive” ideals. Basically, the man and his cohorts have kidnapped progressive terminology to push forth their ideology, which always manages to improve the financial situation of his political donors.

Helping the homeless
Under the guise of caring for people who are down and out, de Blasio throws millions at badly run charities which happen to be run by his friends. The homeless crisis has gotten more out of control under de Blasio than it ever was before, mainly due to liberalization of sound policies that had been in place previously, all for the benefit his shelter-owning donors.

The push for “affordable housing”
This initiative won’t actually make living in the city more affordable or dramatically increase the amount of housing stock available to people of modest means, but it will certainly increase the bottom line of developers of luxury housing throughout the city. The Real Estate Board of New York, a developers’ lobbying group, was behind the push for this legislation because it will increase the profits of their members.

The wars on Uber and horse carriages
Mr. de Blasio waged a very public war on the taxi company, Uber, and promised animal activist group NYCLASS that he would ban horse carriages on day one of his mayoralty. These industries provide much needed jobs for the working class, which had up to that point been de Blasio’s biggest supporters. Public opinion on both of these issues turned against him, causing his withdrawal from both battles. It was no coincidence that yellow cab medallion owners and the driving forces behind NYCLASS had contributed heavily to his campaign, thus leading him into taking these unpopular stances.

The sale of that closed Manhattan nursing home
This is probably the worst example of liberal hypocrisy perpetrated by the de Blasio administration. Rivington House, a building owned by the city, just so happened to be sold to a big BdB donor, a luxury housing developer, after the city conveniently removed a deed restriction that required that the former school building be run by a not-for-profit. This was so brazen that there are now multiple investigations into the matter and there’s little doubt that heads will roll.

Selling NYC to Hollywood
The mayor’s office basically sells access to our city streets – a public asset – for a song to film production companies. The disruption that filming heaps upon the city and its residents is major, yet the permits issued by the city cost next to nothing and filmmakers are not made to provide anything in return to the communities – not even adequate notification. City Hall continues to resist City Council efforts to get these production companies to provide basic demographic information about the people they employ and are offered every protection to avoid scrutiny of their industry.

Transportation
In lieu of providing real transit infrastructure improvements, city hall throws some paint down on our roads and encourages people to bike. This isn’t a feasible solution for most New Yorkers who are left standing at bus stops wondering when the next bus will arrive and if there will be enough space to board it. Real estate professionals have gone on the record stating that they plan their development projects to “follow the bike lanes”, and this is the number one reason for City Hall’s bike lane craze. Similarly, the de Blasio administration has used some fuzzy math to push for a very expensive waterfront streetcar line between Sunset Park and Astoria which was suggested by a developer but that no community has actually requested.

Gaming the election system
Rather than support campaign finance reform like a smart liberal should, it has been reported in the press that de Blasio allegedly tried to game the system by using quid pro quos, straw donors and third party groups as pass-throughs in order to deliver money in excess of what’s allowed by law to Democrats running for State Senate. The more Democrats in the State Senate, the friendlier they’d be to his agenda, so he believed. This is potentially criminal and subpoenas have already been delivered to his staff.

Transparency
De Blasio promised to be the most transparent mayor NYC has ever seen, but has repeatedly withheld records requested under the Freedom of Information Act and tries to hide what he and his underlings do behind closed doors. This past February, the NY Post discovered that “an analysis of hundreds of pages of de Blasio’s personal schedules found dozens of meetings and conference calls with lobbyists that were not included on a list of ‘lobbying meetings’ posted on the city’s website.” Yes, the very lobbyists pushing agendas for the issues previously named in this piece.

Liberals at City Hall whine about the 1% not paying their fair share, yet they relentlessly cater to the very people they publicly criticize. Why are we giving giant tax breaks to developers and Hollywood filmmakers when these are the industries that burden neighborhoods the most with their activities and are most able to pay taxes for necessary city services? Why are we following agendas dictated by deep-pocketed lobbyists? And how can Bill de Blasio promise transparency and then try to hide the things he does as the city’s number one public servant?

At one point in our nation’s history, the term “progressive” was reserved for things that protected the public against the fat cats taking advantage of it – monopoly busting, minimum wage legislation, child labor laws, and conservation measures were a few early progressive causes. What modern day progressivism has morphed into, thanks to de Blasio and his ilk, is the complete opposite of this, and is quite appalling.