Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn/Queens) spoke at the Crain’s breakfast forum July 22, unveiling his “Keys to the City” plan for job creation, a central element to the middle class-focused platform he is once again making central to his mayoral campaign.

Weiner called his plan an effort to build on the success of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whom he ran against in 2005. The two have been sharply critical since, but as his campaign for next year has gotten into gear, Weiner has begun positioning himself as Bloomberg’s natural successor.

To that end, he used Bloomberg’s PlaNYC sustainability initiative as a jumping off point for his emphasis on job creation.

“It started us thinking in a way of government that we should do more often—not just in the next budget, not just in the next year, the next election—where are we going to be in a generation?” Weiner said, praising Bloomberg’s grand vision.

But, he said, a crucial element of any plan for the future had not yet been addressed.

“It posited that we’re going to have a million more people in the next election, and how are we going to make this city livable for them, how are we going to make it sustainable for them,” Weiner said. “But my question for all of you is: where will they work?”
Citing job statistics that show a drop in city jobs from 3.74 million to 3.67 million despite population growth, Weiner argued that New York City must do better in competing for jobs against other cities in the region.

“We need to keep a much closer eye on the Jersey Citys, the Westchesters, and the Stamford, Connecticuts,” he said. “We should watch very carefully what they’re doing and realize that in many cases, they’re doing it better.”

Especially for jobs he called “second-tier”—“someone who’s going to pay that $50-60,000 that represents the aspirational middle class,” he said—many businesses, he insisted, chose to move to Jersey City because of the many job-creation benefits provided there, as opposed to the eight separate business taxes to which new businesses opening in the city are subject.

Among other things, he called for a lowering of the tax burden for outer borough tax creation to make places in the five boroughs like Long Island City more competitive with places like Jersey City, and for a wholesale effort to make benefits for creating jobs in the city clearer and more accessible. The city’s success from creating the television and film tax credits, which has brought in five times the amount of tax revenue that would have otherwise been collected, should be a model, Weiner said.

“Maybe we don’t necessarily compete with those benefits dollar for dollar, but it’s certainly true that we need to at least try,” he said. “And if you don’t see the value of it, go down to Lower Manhattan, look across to Jersey City: you’ll see a skyline that did not exist 10 years ago, with jobs that came almost entirely from New York City.”

In addition to his plans to create bring new businesses with new jobs to New York, he proposed using the internet to promote those already in the city. He would create a central website for small businesses to list their inventory, so that people would be able to shop online at local merchants rather than sending their dollars to large businesses outside the city.

Weiner said that steps like these followed what should be a guiding principle for the next mayor: tackling problems in Bloomberg’s spirit of innovation and creative solutions, though now with the focus placed on helping the middle class, as he proposes to do.

“This is a natural next chapter in our story: how do we use the tools of technology, of growth, of good government, of non-profits, of private sector to make sure we all grow together?” Weiner said. “We will need to be smart, we will need to be tough, and to spur growth and to expand opportunities, we need to have smart government, but also keep it limited.”

To read more about Anthony Weiner and his preparations for his 2009 run for mayor, click here.