Bloomberg Drives Into The Stolen Concept

Here’s the latest proposal to overtax New Yorkers from Nurse Mayor Bloomberg, who says he’ll “fight like heck” to pass it before leaving office:

Mayor Bloomberg defended his plan to charge motorists $8 to enter the most congested parts of Manhattan – laying the groundwork yesterday for a fierce battle with Albany.

“You know, it sounds like a lot of money, but you go to a movie, it’s $12,” Bloomberg said on his weekly WABC-AM radio show. “So, let’s, you know, put some of this stuff in perspective here.”

[Gee, I’m not I’d want to compare the city I govern to an industry in longterm decline–Ed]

Bloomberg said motorists who drive into Manhattan tend to be the “people who can afford it,” and he suggested he would “fight like heck” to get the Legislature to approve the plan before he leaves office in December 2009.

“Using economics to influence public behavior is something this country is built on,” he declared. “It’s called capitalism.”

That last quote sounds like a textbook example of what Nathaniel Branden dubbed “The Stolen Concept” forty years ago: in this case using capitalism, which describes a voluntary exchange of money for goods and services in a wide-open free market. They’ll be nothing voluntary for motorists who wish to enter the Big Apple if Mayor Bloomberg’s proposal becomes law.