Everyone's getting tax breaks, says Daily News columnist, who neglects the ironies of the free-market Bloomberg administration

Daily News columnist Adam Lisberg, in Everyone is getting a break because who can afford to pay retail on taxes?, points out some ironies:

Every one of the biggest new private construction projects in New York is helped along by some sort of public subsidy.

The World Trade Center floats on a sea of tax-free subsidized bonds and taxpayer-funded infrastructure. Same with the Barclays Arena under construction at Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards.

Big hospital projects, like a new research building at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell and a tower at Mount Sinai Medical Center, get tax-free bonds from the state Dormitory Authority.

Madison Square Garden isn't getting a break on the $850 million renovation it started last year - but belongs on the list since it hasn't paid any property taxes since 1982.

"I don't think there are any projects that don't get some type of public assistance," said Richard Anderson, president of the New York Building Congress, which put out its new list of the top construction projects Friday.

But he doesn't go far enough. After all, it's Mayor Mike Bloomberg who regularly invokes the free market when talking about the sports industry or the entrance of Wal-Mart.

Instead, Lisberg lets an apologist speak:

"If it was a more rational level of taxes, we wouldn't need it," said Steven Spinola, head of the Real Estate Board of New York.