CLOWARD-PIVEN OR AND BUST! New York’s progressives will send us back to ‘70’s financial ruin at this rate.

In his 1980 classic, “The Cost of Good Intentions,” author Charles Morris chronicled how New York liberals spent the city into disaster. Free housing, college tuition, health care and welfare skyrocketed until a fiscal crisis ended the binge. As the city nearly went bankrupt, crime soared and families and businesses fled.

Liberals have been replaced by progressives but no matter what they call themselves, a new generation of New York pols are ignoring history as they tax and spend at astronomical levels.

This time, there isn’t any excuse about good intentions. Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo both want to be president, and they are recklessly turning New York into a leftist lab experiment to get national attention for themselves. Their party controls both the City Council and the state Legislature.

The result is a slow-motion disaster, with years of excessive tax and fee hikes making the city and many suburbs prohibitively expensive to govern and unaffordable for residents and employers.

And speaking of a return to New York’s bad old days: Despite City’s Positive Outlook On Crime Numbers, NYPD Reports Murders & Rapes Soaring In 2019.

(Classical reference in headline.)