Wealth & Money Quote by Anthony Weiner

Repetition is the weapon here, and Weiner wields it like a metronome: “for the fifth year in a row” and “once again” turn budgeting into a pattern of neglect, not a one-off dispute. He’s not arguing over line items; he’s constructing a narrative of systematic extraction, where the city’s basic functions are treated as the piggy bank for someone else’s tax relief.

The phrasing “city core services” is doing quiet but heavy lifting. It’s deliberately vague enough to let listeners supply their own stakes - schools, transit, policing, sanitation - while still sounding concrete and essential. “Wealthy tax breaks,” by contrast, is crisp and morally loaded, a political shorthand that frames beneficiaries as undeserving and insulated from the consequences. The verb “pay for” is the hinge: it implies a direct trade, as if a budget is a zero-sum moral ledger where the poor and middle class are billed so the affluent can cash out.

Context matters: this is a Democrat from New York firing at a Republican White House during the Bush era, when fights over tax cuts, federal aid, and urban funding were proxy wars over whose America gets priority. The jab at “the mayor’s requests” is a tactical local twist - a way to broaden the coalition beyond partisan Democrats by suggesting even the city’s executive (who, depending on the year, may not be ideologically aligned) is being ignored. Subtext: Washington isn’t merely stingy; it’s choosing winners, and your potholes, overcrowded classrooms, and delayed buses are the proof.