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NYC's Next Mayor? Economy & Equity: Ray McGuire
![Former Citigroup vice chairman Raymond McGuire participates in a Yahoo Finance Summit, Oct. 10, 2019.](https://media.wnyc.org/i/800/0/c/85/2020/12/AP19283616115387.jpg)
( Evan Agostini/Invision / AP Photo )
Raymond McGuire, former Citigroup executive and mayoral hopeful, talks about his plans for the City's economy, both in recovering from the pandemic losses and in addressing pre-existing inequality.
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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we continue our month of May round of interviews with the New York City Democratic primary candidates for mayor. Our theme for this round is economic recovery meets economic justice. We know that any new mayor will have to guide the comeback from COVID after so many hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost. We also know the economic devastation was not spread evenly across the board in the city, not hardly. We know that fighting economic inequality was how Mayor de Blasio got elected more or less eight years ago and yet that work already had many miles yet to go even before the pandemic.
Economic recovery meets economic justice. We'll also touch on a few campaign news items as we've been doing in this round, including from last week's debate. With us today on this, Ray McGuire who left his job as Vice-Chair of Citigroup to make this run. Mr. McGuire, thanks for coming on again. Welcome back to WNYC.
Ray McGuire: Thank you for having me. I hope you're well today. It's a beautiful day in New York City.
Brian: Absolutely is and a run of beautiful days, happy to say. For people who know you or don't know you, I'll cite that the bio page of your campaign says, "My journey started at the bottom." People may not know that. What people probably do know is that you made it all the way to Vice Chairman of Citigroup. To the theme of our main topic this month, how does your own personal story impact your approach to economic justice in this very unequal city?
Ray: Brian, it's a great question. I would say my personal story is being raised by my single mother, who at points in time worked three jobs. Then she became a social worker. I didn't know my dad. My single mother raised me and, my two brothers were with my grandparents. We had half a dozen foster siblings. I know what it means to struggle and that informs why and how I will bring every New Yorker along in my comeback plan because I am New Yorkers. My struggle, the struggle that I've lived with over the course of my life, is the struggle that everyday New Yorkers live with. That's why I'm positioned to understand that.
Brian: Is it possible to say what would have been at the heart of your economic justice platform before COVID and how much the emphasis had to change to meet the changed conditions that the pandemic has forced upon us?
Ray: I would say, Brian, before I left Citigroup, I wrote the foreword to what I think is one of the definitive studies on the economic impact of the systemic inequities in education, in healthcare, in the criminal justice system, and in the overall economy. The impact that it had on the US economy was $16 trillion and if we began to address it today, that would add an additional $5 trillion to the US economy. The same dynamics exist on a percentage basis in New York City. As we are more inclusive, the more the economy grows, and the more that there is shared prosperity, what has not happened up to this point is shared prosperity.
Brian: You're saying economic growth doesn't always bring economic justice, or shared prosperity as you put it. Is that a reason ever to hold off on things that are purely growth-oriented, until you brought more equity into the economy?
Ray: No. It is not a reason to hold off at all. You just have to be intentional and you have to be inclusive. My economic comeback plan is called the greatest most inclusive economic comeback plan, where I intend to focus on creating 500,000 jobs. It's called go big, go small, go forward. Go big with infrastructure, go small is focused on small businesses, which as you know are the lifeblood to the city. Half the New Yorkers work in small businesses and where I have a plan that's outlined in my rayformayor.com plan. Then going forward is to be inclusive for minority women-owned businesses.
Last year in New York City spent $22.5 billion, 82% of the MWBE got zero. As I think about being intentional in growth, you got to be intentional. There are examples out there where that's occurred but what has taken place in New York City has not been intentional, and therefore it has not been inclusive. I want to grow in my economic comeback plan, growth is inclusive. It's at the cornerstone of my overall economic growth plan.
Brian: How would that have informed, for example, how if you were mayor, you would have handled the Amazon HQ2 plan for Long Island City? Supposedly 20,000, 25,000 jobs, many of them high-paying tech jobs but because they're high-paying tech jobs, they'd be concentrated in that area. The neighborhood was very concerned about gentrification and displacement and exacerbating inequality through that economic growth. How would you have handled that as mayor?
Ray: Another great question. We have to look at where we are in the overall economic environment, where the state unemployment rate, I think, as of March last is maybe 11% or so percent across New York City. In many of our boroughs, that number gets up to the high double digits, 15% to 20%. With projects like HQ2, what that lacked was leadership. I would have been out every day talking to New Yorkers and talking about the impact of the jobs that would have created, the economic impact, the education, the schools that it would have created, the infrastructure that would have created and the benefits to New Yorkers and the local communities. New York City and New York State had been able to attract and get a transaction get a deal done with Amazon, I think looking at it today, the impact of that would have been enormous.
More jobs created, better infrastructure, more schools, the economic empire would have been massive. I would have been out in the community talking to the community leaders, talking to the community boards, talking to the civic leaders, outlining the importance of bringing HQ2 here, and making certain that New Yorkers were able to benefit from that workforce training. Those people who didn't have digital, or technology literacy, get them trained. Let's focus on that. The impact of that would have been enormous. I would have been in favor of, I would have been the cheerleader for, I would have led that process, and would have ended differently to how it ended. The impact that would've had on our New Yorkers.
Brian: Not everybody could be a software engineer. How would you have handled the sheer pressure on housing prices, which of course were already crazy in New York, Long Island City included?
Ray: Well, the thing that you have to do which has not been done, which is why you get so much reaction, is those people who've been in office have not been including those people who are most likely to be displaced. They have not been at the table. What anyone who's been involved in negotiating transactions, you have to understand the people whose lives are going to be the most impacted, and you need to include them from the outset, which is not what happened. There should not be a project that we move forward on in New York City without the local community involvement, especially those who built the community, and especially those whose lives are going to be most impacted by the building that takes place.
Brian: That's a seat at the table, but what would the acceptable outcome been to ensure people's affordability?
Ray: Well, I would have made sure that when housing got built, that it would have been truly affordable housing, where you have units available so that people didn't have to pay more than 30% of their income in rent. We have projects like this today. There's a great project in Bronx called the Bronx common, where the rents go from $225 a month, the most you can pay is $1999 a month for a three-bedroom. It includes homes for those who are formerly homeless, to those who want to be homeowners. It can be done and also has. It's powered by solar fuel. It has a concert hall. They're facilities for the elderly. It has a gym. It can be done if we're intentional about building.
Brian: It sounds like a good thing. Let me push this one more step, because that's about new construction. The concern in Long Island City was displacement of people who are currently living around there not in rent-stabilized or rent-controlled apartments. Would it have required anything to protect them that isn't already in place?
Ray: Absolutely, yes. That's where the disconnect occurred. It did not have dispensation for those who are in the community who built the community, for them to stay in the community. I would have made sure in my negotiation that we made for that allowance.
Brian: How?
Ray: I would have made sure that whatever items that we negotiated with HQ2 were included. Those people had places, that whatever we built or whatever we converted, would have included those people who would have been displaced, who couldn't afford whatever the latest rents whatever the prevailing rent would have been. We could have made certain that had happened. I've been involved in enough negotiations, to make sure, again, that the people whose lives are going to be the most impacted have a seat at the table and that if they choose to stay in that community that we would done whatever we could to accommodate them staying in the community. They built the community. They're the lifeblood of the community. They shouldn't be displaced.
Brian: Listeners, your questions welcome here for democratic mayoral hopeful. I said that right. Democratic mayor hopeful Ray McGuire primarily on the topic of economic recovery meets economic justice 646-435-7280. Post-COVID economic recovery and long-term economic justice. 646-435-7280. Let's take a phone call right now. It's Ben in Sunset Park. Ben, you're on WNYC. Hi.
Ben: Good morning Brian and Ray, thanks for taking my call. I'm having a hard time picking who to vote for mayor. I know that in a number of past elections, we've been offered choices to vote for supposedly successful business people who are going to be excellent in government, and then really didn't turn out to be so. Mr. McGuire, it doesn't sound to me like you're falling quite into that category. I'm quite prepared to believe that you could be a competent person in government as opposed to business, but I think they're very different things. One of my big concerns is that whoever is going to be mayor is going to have to address a massive climate emergency which has been largely denied by government and which is going to overwhelm us, and which we have to be honest about.
Brian: Ben, get to your question. I think we generally, the listener community here, agree that climate change is real and very serious. What's your question for Mr. McGuire?
Ben: My question is, how are you going to address that Mr. McGuire, given your history at the head of one of the major organizations that funded it?
Ray: Great question. You should also know that we're one of the early adopters of climate change and investing in climate change. In my go big go small, go forward economic comeback plan, at the heart of that is what we do with the environment with the climate change. In my plan is included making certain that places like Red Hook, and Hunts Point and Coney Island, Far Rockaways, and lower Manhattan, that we prepare for the 100-year flood that comes every five years. We talked about it up to this point, we've yet to make those investments.
Part of my go big plan where I create the environment for the creation of 500,000 jobs is focused on making sure we deal with climate change. That is the core of my plan. You're right, others have talked about it and just done nothing about it. We simply don't have enough sandbags to prepare for the next Sandy that comes. We need to be intentional about this and my plan includes just that. You're right to raise it. I welcome you raising it but also recognize if you go to my plan at rayformayor.com, you will see that it's included there.
Brian: Sandbags are an adaptation for when a climate emergency occurs at the local level. What's at the heart of your plan for helping to prevent climate change or overall reduce greenhouse emissions at the level of the city?
Ray: We have a plan to be net-zero. I look at streetscapes and look at how many green areas that we have, I want to highlight those green areas and make them more available, especially in the boroughs where they are less available. For one, I want to make sure that we can do whatever we can to transition into as green an economy as we can when it comes to fuel emissions. Making sure that we accommodate the electric part of the cycle, meaning those electric vehicles. I want to make sure that we invest in that. I want to make sure that we invest in garages for a point on demand delivery services.
Rather than have the vehicles, large trucks come into Manhattan during the course of the day, have them deposit the delivery items in what I'm going to call proximity on-demand services. Our garages, let's retrofit the garages to accommodate that so that you have electric vehicles that make the deliveries. I'm doing whatever I can to focus on the climate of the future, not only climate resiliency but a green New York City.
Brian: The caller referenced oil companies and maybe your connections with them from your Wall Street background. I read that John Hess, CEO of the Hess Corporation has spent more than $500,000 himself to support your campaign. In the climate change era how should our listeners think about you being funded that much by an oil company CEO?
Ray: First of all, I don't know anything about what John Hess has done so that is completely out of my control. I would interpret John Hess and others looking at the importance of New York City and looking at the leadership of New York City. I have no idea what John Hess has done. That's completely separate to me running my campaign.
Brian: Do you know him from before your campaign?
Ray: I do know John Hess.
Brian: If he's spending more than $500,000, I guess it's not a direct campaign donation. He's spending it as an independent expenditure to support your campaign, is what I gather you're saying. You're saying you don't know anything about it, whatever? Are you concerned? Should listeners be concerned that an oil company CEO has that much interest in you being the next mayor as opposed to somebody else?
Ray: The answer is I think that listeners should look at my track record where I have been in the position of leadership at the highest level of scrutiny. My track record has never been questioned. I don't expect for it to ever be questioned. There was not any person, any organization that has ever influenced me to do anything other than what is guided by my North Star. My truth is my truth. I don't have to remember tomorrow what it is that I said today. I do not owe any political favors. Matter fact, I don't want any favors. I look at those people who are running for office, who are part of a political machine, who've been doing this for 100 years, and who still have yet to make any progress.
I'm not part of any of that. I'm completely independent. Whatever somebody decides to contribute on their own is for their account. I have zero knowledge about what they're doing. I welcome all support from all New Yorkers.
Brian: This is WNYC-FM HD and AM New York WNJT-FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3. Netcong and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We under York and New Jersey Public Radio. We are talking with democratic mayoral hopeful Ray McGuire primarily about economic recovery from COVID and its intersection with a longer-term economic equality or economic justice questions facing the city. Taking your calls at 646-435-7280. Let's go next to Craig in the Bronx. Craig, you're on WNYC. Hi.
Craig: How you doing?
Ray: Hi Craig in the Bronx. How you doing?
Craig: How you doing? Living the dream. I was very concerned about your answer about the Amazon headquarters project. Jobs are important. However, it depends how fast they come in. Are they good for the area? We all know all those employees who came in at that area, that area cannot handle the infrastructure. They were hiring employees who did not live in the area, who were specialized for Amazon, who were bringing in their own people. There were going to be separate areas for their housing. It would have been detrimental. It would have been a spark of gentrification in two totally different ways.
I think it would have been a detriment. Jobs are wonderful but you have to do it at the right pace and keep it local and help maybe educate the local people to promote it so that you don't have to grow areas by automatically going to gentrification. You can still do that without pushing our local businesses. I think that everyone, like you, have very altruistic ideas but I don't know if they really know how to handle it as it moves along.
Brian: Craig, I'm going to leave it there and get you a response.
Craig: I don't think you guys know how to handle it.
Brian: Mr. McGuire, go ahead.
Ray: Craig, I completely agree with you, which is why I said I would go into the community and talk to those people whose lives would have been most impacted and make sure they were included. You and I are on the same, we don't disagree. We completely agree. Part of the negotiation would have been, had I been there negotiating, Craig and I have negotiated a lot of transactions, would have been to make certain that those local New Yorkers would be included. I would not have allowed anything other than that. You and I are saying the same thing.
I'm quite sensitive to the impact that has on our communities and quite sensitive, having lived in communities like this, quite sensitive to make certain that what you've outlined the gentrification would not have occurred and that the New Yorkers who lived there would have been able to stay there and that local New Yorkers would have had jobs. That would have been part of my negotiation. You're right to point it out and I agree with you.
Brian: Let me ask you a follow-up question about housing. I guess it's fair to say that you and candidate Shaun Donovan got somewhat embarrassed last week when the New York Times released transcripts of your editorial board interviews and on the question of what is the median selling price for a home in Brooklyn, you said it's got to be somewhere in the 80 or $90,000 range. Reading that quote, "It's like 80, $90,000. It's got to be that. That's a lot." The real answer was $900,000. My question about that is maybe voters don't mind that a candidate is personally wealthy, but if you're wealthy and out of touch with conditions for people of ordinary means,, like the cost of buying a home, then does it become a problem?
Ray: The answer is I know the home values in Brooklyn, I misstated what I knew. Listen, I recently advised someone of my campaign team on the home buying process. We talked about how it'll be tougher to find something under million dollars in Brooklyn. Thankfully, she found a home under a million dollars and within her budget at east New York, around $600,000. We need, as I did then, educate first time home buyers on the process. We went through who was your lender? Are you saving separately for closing costs? The answer is, I do know. I do in the cost, having actually recently just gone through this. That instance was one where I had a brain freeze.
Brian: Brain freeze like you forgot or you meant to say 900 and you said 90?
Ray: That's exactly right. I meant to say 8 to 900,000 as opposed to 80 to 90,000, because I know the facts. I've just recently gone this in real life where one of the members of our campaign. I know the facts. I've lived the facts and I've managed through that and help guide through, actually advised someone on how to get this done.
Brian: Let's take a call from George in Manhattan, who has a question about the city budget. George, you're on WNYC. Hello.
George: Good morning. Hang on a second, I'll get off the speakerphone. I think the most critical issue far surpassing all the rest for any candidate to discuss is that of the money going forward. The state and the city have gotten billions and billions of dollars from the federal government this year. All the budgetary shortfalls have been dealt with for this time. It's not coming next year. Certainly not in any way that's going to have any kind of numbers similar to what we've had. We see major shortfalls for both the state and the city and its budgets just going forward now, without making any adjustments. Furthermore, we're probably going to see a reduction in the amount of sales taxes, and also property taxes, which are the two mainstays of our city's finances.
Brian: George, I'm going to leave it there for time. Certainly Mr. McGuire, many people have said we're getting all this federal relief money and that prevented layoffs in a lot of service cuts that could have been a doomsday scenario. Mayor de Blasio had warned but that money's is not going to keep coming year after year. How do you compensate?
Ray: First of all, I completely agree with what you said and I've been clear about how ineptly this budget has been managed. We will get dollar from the federal government. It'll be the first time, and dependent upon how we use it, if you use it the way it's spent outlined, then the fiscal years '23, '24 and '25 we will yet incur another $4 billion budget deficit. I am a person who's having managed through budget deficit from the depth of financial crisis. I've had to manage those budgets and be held accountable. I know how to do this. The fact that I've been held accountable and stayed in my position longer than anybody else in the history of corporate America means I've been held to the highest level of scrutiny.
Then I look at this budget, unless we manage it right what you've just outlined is completely correct. In addition to that we're adding 5,500 people to the payroll, and we've just inflated the budget without a way to pay for it. This is the same kind of mismanagement that led us to the crisis that we had in the '70s, where business, labor and government had to come together. We need a leader, somebody who's got the experience that I have who has been held accountable. I've had both, I got the experience and I've been held accountable, more accountable than anybody else.
I've managed over 50 budgets and those budgets are, I had to be responsible for $20 billion worth of revenue and the last transaction I negotiated was over a hundred billion dollars. I'm quite comfortable with budgets of this size and quite comfortable with the ability to surround myself with leaders and managers who understand how to manage budgets like this. In addition to me having that expertise, which I've generated over the past four decades, I know how to manage this budget. The only way out of this is to grow our way out of this, which is my most inclusive economic comeback plan.
Brian: We're almost out of time. I want to give you a chance to say anything you want as we wrap up, but let me frame a ideological field question. A lot of the coverage in the media describes lanes of candidates from left to right and competence management lanes and things like that. You're running in a generally more progressive field. I think it's fair to say than de Blasio did eight years ago when he first got elected. You're not usually named as in the most progressive lane. How do you distinguish yourself on economic justice policy, if at all, from some of the others who do get mentioned in that lane? Dianne Morales, Maya Wiley, Scott Stringer. Is being more moderate or whatever adjective than somebody else you would embrace as a label?
Ray: I discard the labels. I can tell you when it comes to the notion of progressive, I've been progressive all my life. When I came to Wall Street, when I came to the corporate world there are one or two people who look like me, I had to progress through conscious and unconscious bias. I had to climb the ladder. In so doing, I've also extended the ladder for thousands of other people. I've created more opportunity and more economic wealth than all the other candidates combined. When it comes to progressive whatever label you want to have, I've been progressive and none of those people ever walked in my shoes.
I would say that, and for two, I am for what's in the best interest of New Yorkers, I do not owe any political favors. I'm not part of the machine. I haven't been termed out. I'm not looking for promotion and my sole focus is on what's in the best interest of the city that I love and the people I love. As my 95 year old mother says, sometimes you do things for the people and the places that you love, which is why I decided to run for the mayor of New York city. New Yorkers want to change. Status quo has and continues to fail them.
Brian: Should I take that as your closing argument, or do you want to use our last 30 seconds to add anything else?
Ray: Listen, New Yorkers want a mayor for the comeback who's going to pursue economic recovery relentlessly. They want a mayor who's going to restore safety in the streets and subways, and finally get our kids educated. New Yorkers now know that I grew up with very little. I broke down barriers and business. I know how to turn the city's economy around. As a political outsider, I'll make decisions solely on the merits. I do not own any political favors. Zero, bupkis. New Yorkers need a mayor who's a doer not a talker. The ballot's going to look different this year, and I would ask them for their first place votes. I'm four down on the ballot, I want the first place votes.
I'm here to represent New Yorkers in a way they haven't been represented in a long time, if ever. Which means my sole focus is going to be what's in their, and our, best interests. I look forward. Thank you for having me. Thank you for your leadership here Brian, and thank you to your listeners. I look forward to having your votes and go to rayformayor.com
Brian: Thank you for being so accessible throughout this campaign. I really appreciate our conversations. Thank you very much.
Ray: Thank you.
Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. By the way, we'll have another mayoral hopeful in this round focused on economic recovery meeting economic justice. It'll be a candidate Dianne Morales on Wednesday.
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