Expanded excerpts from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's hour-long roundtable discussion with National Journal reporters and editors on June 12.

NJ: Welcome, Mr. Mayor. We understand there are some subjects you wanted to touch on.

Bloomberg: I'm down here, and we keep coming down here, to get the federal government to work on the problems that directly impact the city.... I come down here for getting progress on immigration, which is a big issue in New York City; getting progress on sending money, whether it's for homeland security, or to help us with infrastructure; doing something on the environment or all of the things that impact New York City.

And I was asked a question this morning -- I testified before a Dodd-Shelby Senate committee [hearing] on infrastructure... Who really pays for all of the infrastructure things? And the reality is that New York City taxpayers pay for most of the infrastructure, no matter how big the project is. In New York City, we get some money from the state, and a minimal amount of money from the federal government. And it was interesting -- [Mayor] Shirley Franklin from Atlanta said exactly the same thing, and [Mayor] John Peyton, from Jacksonville. He's a very smart guy, actually. You know, Jacksonville is a much smaller city than New York, but he's the same thing. And then [Mayor Mark] Funkhouser, from Kansas City, said the same thing -- that for all the talk and all the magnitude of the federal money, when it comes down to it, in the end local governments are responsible for providing services and for paying for them....

We're planting 1 million trees with public-private money. I got a million bucks from [musician] Sting.... [Philanthropist] David Rockefeller gave us $5 million. We've got other monies and the city is putting in money. Trees will improve property values, take pollutants out of the air, help with water runoff. We've got 127 different things, and I brought you a copy if anybody cares. This is just our six-month progress report on the 127 things we've come up with to help make New York a more sustainable city, [points to blue booklet] and also to prepare it for the 1 million more inhabitants that we think will be living there by the year 2030....

If a hurricane strikes, we can blame the president for not being there; we can blame Congress and FEMA; we can blame the state governments; but in the end, it's the mayors and the local city governments that have to be prepared for emergencies and be prepared to act.... I think, incidentally, the same thing is true about homeland security. We come down here asking for money; we've asked repeatedly that monies don't get given out on the basis of politics, but get given out on the basis of risk. And there was a senator two years ago who cornered me and said, 'Son,' -- he kept poking me in the chest -- and he said 'Son, you don't understand. This country has to eat. And if they attack our corn crop, we're in big trouble.' So, you know, homeland security -- my issue. I said, 'Senator, I'll agree to not take any agricultural money for New York City, if you agree not to take any homeland security money for your state.' And he didn't want to make that deal.

But it is very disheartening that the federal monies for homeland security keep getting cut back.... The federal government gives out money typically in the wrong places and also for the wrong things. For example, you can only use federal money for new employees. Well, I don't know how to explain to the public we're going to wait to hire the terrorism expert we need until the federal government comes through with the money. I have an obligation to go out and hire that person right away and figure out how to pay for him. When we then apply for federal money, they say, no, no, no, the person is already working for you....

I've taken 1,000 of our police officers and moved them from fighting street crime to intelligence and counterterrorism. We probably have more speakers of any language you can come up with working for New York City -- even just for the police department, but it's true throughout lots of other agencies -- than the FBI and the CIA has done together. The CIA will only hire people with impeccable credentials to be a translator. 'Impeccable credentials' means you've never lived outside the United States. Let me tell you, I've just spent five years trying to speak Spanish, and even if someday I can really do it, you'll never mistake me for a local. So if you want me to understand the nuances or be overseas in counterterrorism, it's just not going to happen....

We have a couple of hundred Arabic speakers, and Farsi speakers, and Urdu speakers. The FBI and the CIA would have a handful. You could count them literally on two hands.

NJ: How would you change the culture in Washington so --

Bloomberg: That's your job. I don't know. I'm trying to change the culture in New York City; that's hard enough!

You know, without being a wise-ass, I think the reason that cities and mayors do better in terms of providing services, and doing the right ones, and doing them efficiently -- and we are hardly perfect because we have plenty of bad mayors and bad experiences -- but we have a press that every day, relentlessly, that asks you, 'You said yesterday you were going to do it -- where is it?' And they find somebody who doesn't think you do a good job, and that's the headlines the next day, so there's always -- you have to keep justifying and looking at your procedures. There is an accountability [factor] at the local level that is not at the federal level.

In all fairness to the federal government, there's also much more of an ability to be specific, and to categorize and to determine what's needed. Even in New York City, where our police department costs us $5.5 billion a year to run -- and that's not capital, that's just operating and pension benefits -- it's easier to take a look at the problem than this amorphous thing that goes across the whole country where nobody can see everything. I can't get to every borough every day. I can't be in every neighborhood all the time. But nevertheless, I have a better understanding of what goes on....

And then there's just the system. I live in a world where it's fundamentally an executive-job government. And Washington is to a great extent -- it is split between both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue....

Let me look at some numbers, things I'm particularly proud of: Life expectancy in New York City is now greater than in the country as a whole.... We've reduced teenage smoking by 52 percent [and] total smoking by 20 percent; we're going to save 100,000 premature deaths because of that. We have a lower traffic fatality rate per capita than anybody in the country; deaths by fire are lower; crime is way, way down -- so low you can't even measure it. In New York City, 85 percent of all the murder victims have criminal records. Not perpetrators, but victims. So the likelihood of you being murdered on the streets of New York City is so low that it's not really something -- if you get murdered, we just assume you're either a criminal, or it was one of your relatives or close friends, because that would account for 99.999 percent of all murders. It's just so unlikely that anything else would take place.

Our school system: We've addressed the problems, to the extent you can in 6-1/2 years, of giving minority kids inferior education.... We now fund all our schools per capita exactly the same. There are some aberrations for No Child Left Behind [the K-12 accountability law] and English-language learners and special ed, but fundamentally, we give every school the same amount of money per kid, regardless of where the school is and the ethnicity of it. In the past, we under-funded those schools, [the ones] with the greatest pedagogical problems. And the reason was the politics: monies go where the elected officials can get some personal benefit, and it tends not to be in the minority communities. It tends to be in those communities that have more money.

We have raised graduation rates 20 percent. We have raised math scores 20 percent. We've raised English scores, if you take out the fact that we now, thanks to federal regulation, have to include in our English scores people who don't speak English. You come from Guatemala, your kid goes to school, doesn't speak a word of English; we give him an English test, they get zero, and we have to include it in the numbers.

But even with that, tests have improved. And what I am most proud of is that the improvement has been much greater among minority kids. Now, they are coming from a much lower base, but if you are ever going to close the achievement gap, that you have to do, you have to keep raising the test scores of the best students. You don't want to dumb those down; that's not the way you want to close that gap.

NJ: Although, Mr. Mayor, the test results, with the exception of fourth-grade math, are not considered statistically significant in the increases --

Bloomberg: No, it depends which year. Overall this year, I have reason to believe, I think next week the test scores are out, and they will show very great, or good reading....

Here's the number that I think tells you more than anything else what's happening: When I came into office, we would lose 12,000 teachers a year, on a base of 80,000 [from] retirements, and quitting to go elsewhere, or to make more money, or they wanted a safer environment, or a place where education was the issue rather than deportment. Whatever. And we could not find enough teachers to replace them -- enough certified teachers. Today, we have only 5,000 teachers quit each year on a base of 80,000, and we have between 50,000 to 60,000 applicants from across the country of qualified teachers for those slots....

It is true that in any one year, some grades don't go up, and it just shows, I think, how difficult the problem is. There's no magic bullet, no easy solution to educating all our kids. But sadly, what is happening are the special interests... are trying to roll back a lot of the good out of No Child Left Behind....

The UFT [United Federation of Teachers], I have given them a 43 percent raise after three contracts in 6 1/2 years. I came into office saying education is my number one priority, and I'm a believer you put your money where your mouth is. I've had to raise taxes to do it, not an easy lift. I'm the one who gets booed in the parades, and people want to have these 'Kill Bloomberg' signs on the steps of City Hall.

The other side of the issue is that with every one of those three contracts, we've had dramatic changes in the contracts in terms of turning over the ability to run the school system to management, as opposed to leaving it down at the teacher level, including performance pay, which nobody in a million years thought that we would get, and we did....

The constituency for the schools that really care is the parents. The rest of us want good school systems, but if it's your kid, it's much more personal. The communities that traditionally have gotten bad service are the minority communities. If you just -- and I'm not here to brag about polls or anything -- but in the end if you do a poll of blacks and Latinos and ask them, do you think the mayor is doing a good job? -- 80 to 16. And they care about two things and two things only. One is education for their kids, and two is crime....

Parents aren't stupid. Even if parents can't read, they know whether their child is getting an education.

We send out a report card now grading every single school. People said I was out of my mind, if I did that, people whose school got F's would be screaming. Yes! That's what you want them to do, scream. And it's sad when some of the parents don't scream. That's a much worse problem. But how is a parent going to know whether or not the school is good unless you have an objective measure? Now, I know there's always going to be somebody who says the measure should be this, or that.

It's very sad, if you take a look at No Child Left Behind -- which isn't perfect, but it was a lot better than nothing. And [President] Bush, who I don't agree with on a lot of things, certainly does deserve some credit on pushing No Child Left Behind. It's Congress that doesn't seem to have the courage. I gave Obama a lot of credit because he came out for standards, and then he seemed to walk away from it a little bit. In the end, if you want to ask McCain and Obama a question -- 'What are you going to do about public education?' -- and see if you can get a real answer, rather than 'I'm in favor of it.'

NJ: Speaking of presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama, and thinking about your own bipartisanship agenda, how do you think this campaign has showcased the public's desire for a much more common-sense approach to government? Are you pleased with the way it has gone?

Bloomberg: The problem with the campaign is that the process isn't really driven by the candidates, in many senses. You have to appeal to these constituency groups. There are these special-interest demands of fidelity in return for endorsements. What I've said in my daily press avail is, I'm not looking for a candidate I agree with. I'm looking for a candidate, when I ask him or her, 'How would you approach a particular program?' they have a rational, well-thought-out answer to that. They can explain how they would pay for it, how they would get it through Congress, or the state legislature, or the city council, because I think these things apply to all those people. What things we couldn't have if we had to pay for that, because life really is about choices, particularly in government -- a little less in the federal level, but certainly at the state and federal levels.

I don't think you know what... the presidential candidates will have to face down the road. There are probably problems we really haven't thought about. Nobody can answer the question 'what you would do about health care?' in a sound bite of 30 seconds or less. The debate process is a joke. That's a creation of the press; the press should be embarrassed about [that], because you never force anybody to really answer the questions. Nevertheless, you could say, 'You write 10 pages about what you would do with health care and then we will take yours and the other guy's and we'll ask questions based on those.' So there's a way to do it, but whether the candidates would ever agree to show up to that format, I'm a little skeptical.

NJ: Does it worry you that neither of the presumptive presidential nominees has executive experience?

Bloomberg: I think we've had presidents who have been brilliant who have not had executive experience, and we've had presidents with executive experience who have not been good presidents. So it isn't the only thing. It's kind of hard -- for my job, I would argue, having had executive experience is terribly important, although we've had mayors who have been OK who have not had executive experience. But for the federal government... it's so big and so different. You know, I have 300,000 employees, and [a] $60 billion budget, and 8 million customers. But that isn't very much different than my company, which has 10,000 employees. In a practical sense, once it gets over a certain amount, you can handle that....

The federal government -- what's good preparation for the job? I don't know how to answer that, and I don't know how the public answers that. In the end, the public answers it in some instinctive, gut thing. They don't read all the inside-the-Beltway stuff; they can't explain to you.

I was with two young people, a young couple. I was in California and we were at breakfast and we were talking about politics. They were both very pro-Obama, and I said, 'Why?' And they said, 'Because he represents change.' I said, 'That's great, what's change?' And they said, 'Change is what's good for America.' I said, 'What's good for America?' 'Change is good for America.'

NJ: A year ago it was reported that you thought that Obama did not have enough executive experience to be president.

Bloomberg: I don't think I ever said that. I would say that neither one has had executive experience. I think they are very different choices, and I don't know yet who I'm going to vote for. Obama's issue is he hasn't learned what you can't do. And you can't blame him for what's been done. And he's got enthusiasm. You can't argue that he's had lots of experience in Congress or around the world. He has not, and I don't think he pretends to have it. His answer would be, 'I will put together a group that can help me with that.'

McCain's raison d'etre is very different. McCain can say he's had more experience. It's harder to argue that he would dramatically change where we've come from. I don't know how you could answer at this point which would be a better president. We don't know what the issues are going to be; you don't know where they are going to be; you don't know who their advisers are going to be. A lot depends on the guy whispering in your ear at the last minute when you have to make a quick decision and you don't have time to think enough.

That happens all the time. It's that old joke about 3 o'clock in the morning, when the phone call comes. You can't assemble your advisers. I might also point out that you don't get a phone call at 3 o'clock in the morning; they don't wake you up. The staffs before they wake you up take many hours to get the facts together so they look au courant. The number of times I've been woken up at 3 o'clock in the morning -- only if a cop gets shot or a firefighter would have died at 3 o'clock in the morning do I get woken up, and then I can go straight to the hospital....

Harry Truman, who has always been my favorite president -- I think Harry Truman changed this world more than any other president, modern-day, let's say, after the first Roosevelt -- he was a haberdasher. He was picked and nobody knew him. Nobody would have ever picked Harry Truman, and yet this guy integrated the Army; he changed the social fabric of this country. He instituted the Marshall Plan. If we'd done that after World War I, you wouldn't have had World War II. It was the first time the victors took care of the vanquished. And he stood up to [Gen.] Douglas McArthur. That was a very heavy lift, which I don't think very many elected officials today would have the courage to do.

NJ: You don't intend to help elect the next president?

Bloomberg:... Number one, I represent 8.2 million people, and I've got to work with whoever gets elected. And my own personal views on national issues -- that's my constitutional right -- but I have an obligation to be able to work with anybody. So, in the last statewide elections, I didn't endorse anybody. I said I have views, and I went and I voted. But I thought I shouldn't express myself. In fact, I've said I will not criticize my successor, whoever they are. I won't sit on the sidelines and be the kibitzer.

Rudy Giuliani never once criticized me, although I guarantee you there were plenty of things he probably violently disagreed with, and when his staff went off the reservation, he reined them right back in. And for the first year or two, that was a great benefit, because it's hard enough to do the job. It's harder if your predecessor -- particularly if some people thought you were great and question your abilities -- was out there.

The other thing is that... what happens if I conclude in the end that I can't think either is going to be a brilliant president? But maybe they will be.

NJ: You don't sound too enthusiastic.

Bloomberg: That's not fair, because I'm enthusiastic about both, in the sense that I think they represent at least a good choice for the public. Both are -- McCain certainly -- he and his family are great Americans, you know, the history -- very few people have contributed to any country like John McCain's family. His grandfather [was a] four-star admiral. His father, him; he's got a son at Annapolis and he's got a son in the Marines. And he's a very nice guy, and he campaigned for me in 2001. I don't remember how that occurred, but somehow or other that did; we walked the streets of Brooklyn.

Obama I've gotten to know. He's very smart, and has lots of interesting ideas. And so I don't think I can say that I don't think either can do it; I just have yet to figure out how you can tell whether or not someone would be a good president.

NJ: Do you believe that Obama has a good grasp of the issues and knows what he would do as president?

Bloomberg: I think that it's the press's fault that you even have to ask that question. The press has not been willing or hasn't found a way to force candidates, and not just for president -- for anything -- to explicitly say what they believe. I always joke about it, that candidates say I'm pro-choice, but not for women; I'm in favor of the war, but not to fund it. And the press -- and keep in mind, I've got 2,300 journalists that work for me -- we don't force them to say, 'Wait a second, I don't understand that issue.' Are you or aren't you? And are you in this case, versus that case? Everyone is for motherhood and apple pie. And we in the Fourth Estate let them get away with not doing more than that. Shame on us! The public may not read or care, but unless the press does their job, I don't know how you get to the next step.

Does Obama know everything about everything? No. But is it fair to expect either candidate to give you an economic policy for the country? I happen to think that McCain was very wrong, as was Hillary [Rodham Clinton], to want to cut the gasoline tax in the summer. It's the singular dumbest idea floated in the last two months, but Obama's anti-free-trade and wanting to reopen NAFTA is a terrible idea, too. McCain, his position on immigration is -- he's waffled a little bit -- but he's taken a much more difficult lift in Arizona. It's fascinating: McCain, [former Arkansas Gov. Mike] Huckabee, and [President] Bush were the three who've actually been much more rational about immigration, and everyone else has just run away from this issue. Talk about third rails -- it's a bigger third rail than gay marriage.

NJ: Is it time for states and cities -- some already have - to take matters into their own hands on immigration?

Bloomberg: I have an executive order out that unless you get arrested, or you apply for a program in which there is a federal requirement that you be documented, or a citizen, we do not ask your status. We treat you at the hospitals, and treat you in everything else exactly the same way as if you were documented. And there's [someone] every once in a while who says, they asked me, but fundamentally, no. If you talk to the immigrant community, they would not have a problem with us. And I've been very, very pro-immigration.

NJ: How does that play with the Republican Right? And McCain?

Bloomberg: As I said, McCain, he stood up more for immigrants than anybody else. There are things about John McCain, even if you disagreed with all his philosophies, there are some very attractive things. He's a man of courage, and I think he has to be respected for it. He's not pro-choice, I assume, I don't know; I think on gay rights he's probably reasonably good -- he stood up for a congressman in Arizona who was outed and vilified --

NJ: Rep. Jim Kolbe --

Bloomberg: Yes, Kolbe. I met him once. I thought McCain was a standup guy for that. But gay rights are still controversial in this country; gay marriage. I've said I don't think it's the government's business to get involved in who you should marry, and I'm willing to go to Albany and testify if they ever have hearings, which they probably never will. I've come out and said that I think this is not something we should -- you know, government should leave people alone.

NJ: Does it depend on what the governor is proposing in terms of recognizing gay marriage?

Bloomberg: We already do it to the extent that it's city law; he's talking about state laws. I don't think he can do it. The state constitution fundamentally -- I was sort of on both sides because we were sued to perform gay marriages, but three of the four judges ruled that we can't do it. So I said we're just not going to create this sham. The guy from California, from San Francisco --

NJ: San Franciso Mayor Gavin Newsom?

Bloomberg: Wasn't he doing something along those lines? And so we said we would appeal the decision and fight for gay rights, but I was not going to issue marriage, licenses, where three out of the four judges, including my corporation counsel, said the constitution's clear -- you have to change the constitution. And I've said, I will got up [to the capital] and fight to get it changed. Do I think I can get it changed? Probably not.

NJ: Hypothetically, let's say there was a successful, popular two-term mayor of New York City. And the city charter wasn't changed so he cannot run --

Bloomberg: It's not going to be changed, I don't think.

NJ: Why would someone like that even think about running for governor of New York, and probably have so much less influence?

Bloomberg: I said today at my press avail [on the Hill], because there was a poll out today that said I would beat [Gov. David] Paterson and Giuliani, assuming they were the candidates, and I said, and let me repeat, I am not a candidate for governor of the state of New York. It is not a job that I would want.

I do think the state is in enormous trouble. We have a very dysfunctional Albany government, state government. The northern side of New York is just hollowing out, and it's a disaster. And it has been getting worse. Buffalo has lost 2/3 of its population, just as an example, in the last few decades. It's getting worse, and it's gotten worse through Republican and Democratic governors. Everybody promises.

We have a government, system of government at the state level, very powerful legislature; very weak governor.

It is not a job that I'm suited to do. Do I think I could do it? I have enough of an ego to think I can do anything, sure. But no, I'm not going to run for governor. Now, you can talk to my deputy mayor for government affairs and political adviser [Kevin Sheekey], and he has different views, but I'm going to run him for governor. And I said today Paterson will be a good governor. I hope he will be, because we need it and I'll do everything I can do to support him. I have no interest in being a governor.

NJ: You've talked about cities collaborating with each other and written that the days of sitting back and waiting for national governments are over. Can you flesh that out?

Bloomberg: We have New York Police Department officers in a dozen cities around the world. We have this mayors' coalition against guns -- 350 mayors. We're trying to force Congress to give us the data to enforce federal law that says you can't sell guns to criminals. The environmental, infrastructure thing with [Pennsylvania Gov. Ed] Rendell and [California Gov. Arnold] Schwarzenegger and myself -- you're going to see lots of mayors all signing on. Overseas, I've stayed friendly with and really do some things with -- three weeks ago I spent some time with the mayor of Milan [Letizia Moratti], who is as smart a woman as you'll ever meet in government -- as smart a person as you'll ever meet in government -- and she put in congestion pricing, reduced traffic in the central city by 20 percent almost overnight. And I'm told it's very popular, although it wasn't in the beginning, but she didn't need a legislature to do that.

NJ: But you do in New York City, right? Transportation Secretary Mary Peters thinks you're going to go ahead and do it anyway.

Bloomberg: I can't, because by state law, we can't impose fees or fines. That's the trouble. If it wasn't for that, sure. I'm not so sure, incidentally, that state legislature won't come back because they have no, no funding for any mass transit capital project, and they're going to have a disaster on their hands. After having a fare increase six months ago, they're already running out of money.

There are some variations: If you're really smart you just toll the Manhattan bridges all around, because why bother to separate one part of Manhattan -- it would reduce the costs of implementation and operation dramatically, but fundamentally you'd be charging the same people. And it [congestion pricing] would be great for business. It would help our economy. It would reduce pollution. There is absolutely no reason not to do it, and there is no other answer. So, will the state legislature do it? I don't know. There's absolutely nothing else I can do about it at this point.

I was asked today something about that, and I've said, look, we've laid it out. In fact, I went even further than that. We went through a process to get it implemented that was asked for by the assembly, and I complied with every single thing, and I had every reason to expect them to pass it. And they didn't bring it to a vote.

NJ: You convened a summit of mayors on global climate change. What can mayors really do on an issue like that?

Bloomberg: Well, for an example, the mayors who are in the mayors' coalition against guns represent 50 million Americans. So, it's not like you don't have -- and I would think the people in those cities are much more likely to know the name of their mayor than the name of their congressman, senator or governor, or even president, for that matter.

You can do some things. We've blatantly stolen some good ideas from Chicago and Miami and Atlanta and Seattle. Overseas, congestion pricing, you can argue that we took from London. So you can do some things together. Our problems are when things go across borders. So for example, energy: very hard to do something. But having said that, we're converting everyone to compact fluorescent bulbs; more fuel-efficient taxis and garbage trucks; we're planting a million trees. But when it comes to power plants, it's outside New York City, so there's not a lot we can do.

I think we have 127 things in our plan [for the city], and something like 90 or 95, we don't need approval from anybody to do, and we've got almost all of those started.

NJ: What's your take on the campaign finance process?

Bloomberg: I don't think it's as big a deal as everyone says it is. ... If all wealthy people are Republicans, and Republicans have this insurmountable funding advantage, you can't show it by this election. The money is available.

Is it obscene that we spend $1 billion on each side -- or whatever the number will be finally, on getting the message out? I don't know. TV works me over about it, and then raises the advertising rate. You can't have it both ways. I just don't think that's the real issue. I think the real issue is that the public never knows who they're voting for, what they stand for. And afterwards, doesn't hold their [elected officials'] feet to the fire, to say you did this.

I've tried to make New York City accountable. That's the legacy I can leave, so that my successors, hopefully, with some instigation from the good-government groups and the press and the public, demand the activists will hold their feet to the fire.

NJ: Will you return to business exclusively?

Bloomberg: I've said no. I don't have any interest in that. I have great management. I've just brought in the next, future management.

NJ: Will you concentrate on philanthropy?

Bloomberg: I think common sense says I'm not going to sit around and read grant proposals. I think that is fair. I have no idea what I'm going to do. I cannot see anything in government -- although Kevin would like me to do something in government. I'm not going to run for governor. Nobody is going to ask me to be their vice president or anything. The only thing, my interest in philanthropy -- I don't know if you saw about two weeks ago, Colombia, the country, passed a smoking ban for the entire country. My foundation had a lot to do with that. I've committed $65 million a year for the last two years, and will soon announce a gift going forward, to work on smoking cessation worldwide. Smoking this century will kill a billion people. I can't think of anything that the foundation can work on that will have a greater impact.

Having said that, once I got it going, I'm not an epidemiologist. I'm not a behavioral psychologist or an advertising expert.

We just made a big breakthrough in China: We just got the right to run ads. We can't say 'smoking is bad for you,' but they approved ads in which we say 'not smoking is good for you.' It's another way to get out the message.

We've got a big program going in traffic deaths. We've cut by nearly 40 percent the fatality rate of traffic deaths in Vietnam. We're doing two demonstration projects, one in Vietnam where it's all bicycles, and Mexico, where it's all cars. And the Johns Hopkins and the School of Public Health is a big interest of mine.

What will I do? I don't know. I've got two buildings I'm combining a block and a half away. I can tell you exactly what I could do at the beginning. I could spend two months in Spain polishing up my Spanish. I could spend a week on a golf course, polishing up my golf game.

NJ: What about a Cabinet post?

Bloomberg: I haven't worked for anybody for 27 years. It would be kind of hard to start now, I think. Most of those Cabinet jobs aren't interesting, or they're not something that I'm good at.

NJ: What about Treasury?

Bloomberg: [pause] I think Hank Paulson is a great secretary of the Treasury. This guy is very smart and very hard-working. Keep in mind, his job is to espouse the administration's policies. Cabinet jobs are not where you bring somebody in and they do what they think is right. It's a very different kind of job, which is one of the reasons I don't know that I'd find them particularly attractive. I do think that the important Cabinet jobs going forward [are] Treasury, yes; State, most important, because we've destroyed our relationships around the world, and unless we do something about that, you can't fight terrorism. You can't advance science. Entrepreneurship is going to go elsewhere. I don't mean to belittle the others, but they're not jobs that I would have an interest in.

NJ: Thinking about the economy, would you urge Congress to pass additional stimulus measures?

Bloomberg: After I said [handing out rebate checks] was like giving a drink to an alcoholic, I didn't get a lot of traction.

NJ: Do you think Congress should do more?

Bloomberg: It's really hard. The government thinks they can do everything. You can make the case -- and I'm not enough of an expert; if I had to vote, I'd do some more research -- you can make the case that by softening and protecting some mortgage holders, you're prolonging the agony and making it worse. I don't know if that's true or not.

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