New York City’s brand-new mayor Bill de Blasio has an ambitious progressive agenda that includes tax increases, much talk about somehow crushing inequality and punishing “the elite.”
Two issues high on de Blasio’s agenda are the creation of more abortion clinics across the five boroughs and an outright ban on horse-drawn carriage rides in Central Park.
De Blasio’s animosity to the horse-drawn carriages runs deep, apparently.
“We are going to get rid of horse carriages, period,” he said at a news conference Monday, according to CNN. He added that he believes the tourist attraction — popular since 1858 — is inhumane and dangerous.
The new mayor, who took an oath of office on Wednesday administered by former President Bill Clinton, wants to replace the romance of horse-drawn carriages with the romance of antique-looking electric cars. (The carriage drivers would switch to these vehicles.)
The City Council must approve de Blasio’s carriage ban before it can take effect.
If the iconic horse-drawn carriages are banned, over 200 horses will be out of work.
The fate of those horses is not at all clear. It could be the slaughterhouse. The United States already sends over 90,000 horses to Mexico and Canada to be killed each year.
“Horses that have jobs are the last horses that get neglected,” carriage driver Christina Hansen told the Daily News. “It’s the horses that don’t have jobs that we’re seeing shipped to slaughter.”
The price for sending the 200 carriage-carrying horses of Central Park to a shady pasture would be about $500,000 every year.
In addition to his dedication to eliminating horses that draw carriages, de Blasio, 52, is deeply committed to opening a slew of abortion clinics across New York City.
The proudly progressive and once-whole-hog socialist, Sandinista-loving mayor’s dot-com website pledges to “ensure that all women in New York City have access to” abortions whenever their hearts desire. He adds that he will work closely with Planned Parenthood. He will also force New York City’s police department to assist in his citywide efforts to increase abortions.
De Blasio has also promised to prevent opponents of abortion from speaking freely near abortion clinics and to shut down the city’s handful of pro-life crisis pregnancy centers. He calls them “sham crisis pregnancy centers” “masquerading as legitimate healthcare providers.”
Bill Donohue of the Catholic League told The Daily Caller he isn’t happy with the new mayor’s platform.
“Horses count; babies don’t,” Donohue told The Daily Caller. “Look for 2014 to be an epic year in the Big Apple.”
