Bloomberg Not Banking on Federal Money

At a press conference in Queens earlier today, Michael Bloomberg was asked if New York City would follow Philadelphia, Phoenix and other cities in seeking direct federal aid to deal with the financial crisis.

“If the federal government were to start sending money to cities, we would certainly love to have our share of it,” Bloomberg said in response to a reporter’s question. “Do I think that they’ll do it? I don’t know. Everybody’s lining up now. There’s no industry that isn’t saying, ‘We need a bailout.’ ”

Bloomberg also said, “If we can get aid, that’s fine. What I’m not going to do is sit around and assume that we are going to get that aid because I think it would be difficult to get. But if it was possible, that would be great. But in the meantime, we’re going to address our problems ourselves.”