Hughes has left the administration. I’ve not heard why although there is a rumor he is being blamed for Nutter’s political misteps, including the proposal to close libraries and the call for massive increases in the property tax.
Closing libraries and raising the property tax to such an extent–and ruling out any increases in wage or business taxes or elimination of the tax abatement–certainly looks to be part of the Hughes strategy I criticized here a few months ago, that is, to focus city services and tax cuts on the happy half million middle class people in the city rather than on the miserable million working class and poor.
Unfortunately, raising the sales tax instead of the property tax is just another way of doing the same thing as it is even more regressive than a property tax increase, especially one with a homestead exemption or circuit breaker.
If Hughes leaving the administration suggests a reconsideration of his policy strategy, that would be a very good thing. If, however, he is leaving for other reasons or is just a convenient fall guy for the Mayor’s season of discontent, we may have a continuation of Hughesism without Hughes. And that would be a very bad thing.
The test will come this summer and fall when we find out if, having spent two years and having weathered a budgetary and union contract storm, the Nutter administration has a strategy for economic development in the city that is something other and more than just handing tax breaks and city services to the upper middle class.
I’ve seen a few reasons for optimism–a little noticed announcement about commercial corridor development; some whispering about transit strategy. Whether any of that turns out to be real, as they say, remains to be seen.