Party like it's '73

Any fan of time travel would have felt right at home at a Manhattan gathering I attended Thursday. The air of nostalgia was thick, the longing for a lost era palpable as participants spun golden visions of past glory.

Unfortunately, the event was a forum for Democrats who want to be mayor. Given the way they talked about the job, it seemed like 1973.

The Dems are stuck in a time warp. As they jockey to out-promise each other for expanding government services, they seem oblivious to reality. Namely, the fiscal crisis that nearly bankrupted the city 30 years ago and that still defines government limits.

Reality had taken a holiday in 1973, too. During his eight years in City Hall, John Lindsay's budget had grown by a whopping 125% and the payroll was up by 100,000 workers. But as controller Abe Beame headed for victory on promises of bigger government, there was almost no talk of the fiscal tidal wave aimed at New York. That was the last election, or should have been, where anyone who wants to be mayor could pretend ignorance of the laws of economics.

But Thursday was 1973 all over again as Manhattan Borough President Virginia Fields, Fernando Ferrer, Council Speaker Gifford Miller and Rep. Anthony Weiner took turns promising more, more, more. Jobs, housing, schools, medical care - more, more, more. If anyone suggested something ought to be cut, that government would have to do more with less, that unions would have to make concessions - if any of that was mentioned, I missed it.

The forum at Hunter College, sponsored by WWRL-radio and several other groups, was a question-and-answer session. There were many chances to remind the audience that there is no such thing as a free lunch. And that with the city already facing deficits of billions of dollars, it must restrain spending.

Instead, the Dems are proposing tax hikes to raise more money. Of the four, only Fields has not called for increasing a tax. But tax hikes are no answer. With New Yorkers already facing the highest tax burden in America, going deeper into people's pockets will drive away the middle-class and businesses - which is what happened in the Lindsay and Beame years.

Mayor Bloomberg seems to have a better grasp of that fact. Although he has raised taxes, especially the property tax, to painful levels, he has kept pressuring his aides to cut spending.

Equally important, he has looked to economic development as the long-term answer. He believes that the city must produce more and more private-sector jobs to expand both prosperity and its revenue base. That will allow the city to afford the government it already has and, carefully, add to it.

The Olympics and the Jets stadium are big parts of that vision. There are risks with both, yet the mayor can honestly tout them as future-looking projects aimed at boosting the city's long-term financial health.

All four Dems oppose the stadium and seem to be less than wild about the Olympics. That's okay - if they've got a better idea. Simply saying nay isn't enough.

Unless, of course, they want to live in the past. And don't want to be honest about the future of New York.