New Normal, New York.

The Bloomberg

In a slap at New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s handling of basic city services, Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday suggested a solution: soldiers.

“If they can’t do it, I have offered to send in the National Guard to come help pick up the garbage,” Cuomo said at a news briefing. “The state can bring in trucks, personnel, and clean up the city.”

The governor’s offer came two weeks after de Blasio announced a plan to boost trash pickup and reduce trash on streets by restoring 65 weekly litter-basket trucks in 27 neighborhoods. De Blasio was responding in part to complaints from business leaders that quality-of-life issues are deterring workers from going back to the office — a key to economic revival.

On Tuesday, Cuomo said that “cleanliness matters” during a pandemic.

First off, this is more a slap at the National Guard. Although it would be quite a site if they arrived in tanks and militias and fired sorties and shot bazooka rounds at the mountains of trash on the street.

But you gotta wonder what’s going on in Cuomo’s autocratic little brain of his. Maybe he’ll use the Guard to battle garbage and fight crime. Which would make Jerry Seinfeld a prophet for his suggestion to George Costanza of integrating the Sanitation and Police departments into one efficient fighting force against trash and crime.