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Murdoch Wants RE to Flex Political Muscle

NEW YORK CITY-The News Corp. CEO told a REBNY audience Tuesday that any one of them could elevate the US Senate contest just by running.

By Paul Bubny | Updated on March 02, 2010

NEW YORK CITY-With an unmatched “physical stake” in the economic vitality of the city and the region, the commercial real estate industry needs to exercise its power to shape the political process, media titan Rupert Murdoch told a Real Estate Board of New York gathering Tuesday.

When New York City teetered on the brink of bankruptcy in the 1970s, “this city stayed solvent because your industry prepaid your real estate taxes,” Murdoch said. He challenged the industry—which he said accounts for about half the city’s $35-billion annual tax base—to use that clout to help bankroll candidates and wrest influence in Albany from the “public employee unions” that get lawmakers elected and re-elected in what many consider the nation’s most dysfunctional state legislature.

On a more local level, Murdoch said that while he’s a longtime admirer of city schools chancellor Joel Klein, the educational process here is still marred by too many “wasteful practices” that are unaffordable in a competitive world. “The real issue is not high costs but whether it provides high value,” Murdoch said. Government, he opined, doesn’t provide that degree of value.

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