Eventually You Run Out of Other Peoples' Money - NYC Edition

The title to this post is a paraphrase of Margaret Thatcher on the subject of socialist spending. NY state comptroller rings alarm bells over Big Apple's dire financial situation

The state’s top money manager has sounded the alarm over New York City’s dire financial situation, arguing in a new op-ed that the Big Apple is “teetering on a fiscal cliff” due to the escalating migrant crisis and years of increased city spending.

Yes, of course. It is the fault of those mean red-state governors who keep sending migrants to the blue cities. That isn't what they signed up for when they adopted their sanctuary status! They only wanted to stick it to federal law enforcement and the red states. It has nothing whatsoever to do with overspending on pet, liberal projects. They could have kicked the can down the road for YEARS yet, before reality caught up with them. Nothing to see here. Move along.

And they do spend a lot of time lamenting the costs associated with the illegal immigrants. They don't use that term of course. But eventually they do get to the heart of the matter.

The budget gap’s major underlying cause, however, will come from the years of spending on programs that were either only funded for a short time or not at all, the comptroller said.

“City-funded spending has increased more than 50% over the past decade while recurring revenues have not kept pace,” DiNapoli wrote.

You can't increase your spending by 50% if your income has been flat, unless you were living inside your means to begin with, and New York City was not.

This is not a new idea. The principle of living within your means is spelled out in one of my favorite passages from Dicken's 1850 novel David Copperfield, given to the character Wilkins Micawber.

“My other piece of advice, Copperfield,” said Mr. Micawber, “you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.”

This is a lesson that has been lost to the people running our blue cities. And our government as a whole.