D.C. Lawmakers ‘Love Trashing New York,’ Brooklyn Congressman Says

LOWER MANHATTAN—Rep. Max Rose said Thursday there is a bias in Washington against New York City that works against its residents’ interests.

Rose—a first-year Congressman who represents Bay Ridge, Bath Beach, and Dyker Heights, as well as parts of Gravesend, Sheepshead Bay and Bensonhurst—lamented that, in Congress and the White House, “anti-New York sentiment” is common. He said that showed in their reluctance to fund infrastructure projects like Gateway Project—a proposal which requires billions in federal funds, according to its New York supporters— and the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund.

“There’s already an incredible anti-New York bias in the halls of Congress,” said the centrist Democrat who last year ousted former Congressman Dan Donovan, at an Association for A Better New York event in Manhattan, responding to an audience question about the 2020 census.

On the 2020 count, Rose said the Trump administration has already hurt efforts to get an accurate count in the upcoming census, likely depriving New York of its fair share of federal funds.

Rose also cited the SALT deduction cap in the 2017 GOP tax law and focus on border security instead of the terrorist threats he said New York faces as evidence of Congressional antipathy to New Yorkers.

“Think about all the talk about what’s happening at the border— ‘Border wall, border wall, border wall,’” he said. “Few times people actually speaking about the threat of terrorism in this city. [Look at] how little people are speaking in the halls of Congress about the fact that our police department is reliant federal on funds to support its counter-terrorism efforts. They love trashing New York.”

The antipathy toward New York isn’t anything new, he acknowledged, pointing to elected officials who were symbolically sympathetic toward  9/11 victims, but don’t support allocating funds aimed at helping them.

“All these folks in D.C. love to tweet out ‘Never forget.’ They have pictures of the twin towers in their office, but when it comes time to put their money where their mouth is, suddenly they become fiscal conservatives,” said the military veteran.

“Suddenly, they say secretively to their buddies, ‘Oh, that’s just a bunch of Italian and Irish cops and firefighters and Jewish lawyers,’” Rose, who is Jewish, joked. “That sentiment is not something that we can change very quickly, but we have to fight it.”