Giuliani Begins 2nd Term by Targeting Drugs, Taxes

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, sworn in for a second term Thursday, outlined plans to crack down on drug sales, hire more police and cut taxes.

“Four years from now, when the next mayor of New York City stands here, I want the newspapers and the magazines around the nation to be writing about how New York City led America to a drug-free America, the way they are writing about our crime reduction and welfare reform today,” Giuliani said during a 27-minute inaugural address before 5,000 guests on the steps of City Hall.

The mayor also said that in the first 120 days of his new term, he plans to hire 1,600 police officers and cut taxes for small-business owners.

“Over the last four years . . . we have reduced or eliminated 16 separate taxes and returned over $1.1 billion to the private economy,” he said. He got his biggest applause when he said he would push to eliminate the tax on clothing and shoes.

The mayor, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, took the 59-word oath of office administered by a longtime friend, U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey, who presided over the bomb conspiracy trial of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and nine others convicted in the case.

Giuliani’s wife, Donna Hanover, and their two children, Andrew and Carolyn, stood with him.

It was the third time since Tuesday that Giuliani had placed his hand on a Bible and promised to “faithfully discharge the duties of the city of New York.” On Tuesday he was formally sworn in by the city clerk and made to pay a fee of 15 cents. Last night there was a private oath-taking at the mayor’s residence, Gracie Mansion.

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the organization of New York into five boroughs--the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island--Giuliani plans to tour and party in all of them.

Despite being a Republican in a city where Democrats outnumber the GOP by a 5-to-1 margin, Giuliani was reelected in November in a landslide over Manhattan Borough President Ruth W. Messinger.

He has been credited with turning around a city that once seemed ungovernable, particularly in regard to crime, which has dropped to its lowest rates in more than a generation.

With a record half-million revelers gathered in Times Square to ring in the new year, police reported Thursday there had been only 30 arrests in the area for assault, robbery, criminal possession of a weapon and grand larceny.