Mayor Bloomberg and Sen. Chuck Schumer haven't been seeing eye to eye recently over Wall Street reform, a rift made more apparent by Bloomberg's recent trip to Washington. Bloomberg, concerned that reform will inhibit Wall Street's revenues and its effect on NYC's revenue, allegedly spoke out against Schumer in a GOP meeting, calling him "AWOL" and criticizing him for not defending the financial industry after building his career on it. Bloomberg said Schumer's absence "is a real problem for New York City,”according to one Republican Senator.
However, one source close to Schumer said, “The mayor’s jihad against Obama and Schumer and the Dodd bill [is] a curious strategy. When you come down to Washington and argue for next to no regulation, it puts New York in the cross hairs more, not less.” Schumer, who has been very vocal about issues like ensuring airlines don't charge for carry-on luggage, only announced last Friday that he supports Wall Street reform, because "strongly and smartly regulated Wall Street will be a healthier Wall Street."
And there's more: Bloomberg is also annoyed at Schumer's backing of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand for Hillary Clinton's old Senate seat. Schumer is allegedly upset that he has to learn about Bloomberg's gripes from others instead of at their one-on-one dinners, which haven't happened in months, while Bloomberg is reportedly still miffed that he was not notified of President Obama's visit to New York tomorrow, and had to learn about it from blogs. White House spokesman Bill Burton said, "The mayor and his staff of course were notified. Sometimes reporters find out about things before every notification call is made. I know he's a very plugged-in mayor and reads a lot of blogs, so he's obviously on top of things." Well, he sure does love the Twitter.
