A week after a nor’easter grounded a planned trip to Atlanta, Mayor Bill de Blasio has his bags packed again for the South — and then South by Southwest. During a five-day, taxpayer-funded swing through Baltimore, Austin, Tex., and Washington, D.C., Mr. de Blasio says he will meet with like-minded progressive mayors to promote issues such as tax reform and federal funding for public housing, and speak out against the Trump administration. Mr. de Blasio used President Trump as a foil during his recent re-election campaign and has promised to take on more of a national profile to help elect and promote progressive leaders. “President Trump and his Republican Congress regularly threaten the well-being of New Yorkers,” Freddi Goldstein, a spokeswoman for Mr. de Blasio, said in a statement. “The mayor uses these events to identify key, and sometimes unlikely, allies he can work with to influence congressional members and share resistance strategies that are working.”Advertisement Continue reading the main storyOn Friday and Saturday, Mr. de Blasio was to attend the Progressive Caucus Center Strategy Summit in Baltimore, where he will speak about the role mayors can play in pushing for “policies that contribute to economic fairness and participatory democracy.”

Source: International New York Times March 09, 2018 23:48 UTC