New York City sends $10.9 billion more tax dollars to the federal government than it gets back. But the Democratic takeover and the historic number of New Yorkers in leadership positions mean that the Washington money truck is coming back our way.

Representative Jerrold Nadler
The Cross Harbor Rail Freight Tunnel is Nadler’s longtime dream project. (A congressional staffer called it “his white whale.”) Now that Nadler will be the Northeast’s most senior member on the House transportation committee, he’ll land additional funding for it, which he says would take a million trucks off city streets.

Representative Charles Rangel
Rangel, in line to be chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, is hoping to bring home money for New York’s teaching hospitals, community health centers, and performing-arts community, and an aide promises he’ll be “sensitive to the needs of Wall Street.” Rangel also knows the last twelve years of promises will come back to haunt him. “Some people have already called about issues we’d promised them we’d address. You’d be surprised by how many friends you have when you get into the majority,” says the aide.

Representative Anthony Weiner
Weiner wants to fully reopen the Statue of Liberty: “The National Park Service is lagging about it,” according to a member of Weiner’s staff. “Now that we can actually get the funding, they have no excuse,” he says. And Weiner dreams of reauthorizing the cops program, which provided money to hire city police officers and which the Republican Congress had zeroed out.

Representative Nita Lowey
Lowey, about to be appointed an Appropriations Committee “cardinal,” wants more homeland-security money to end up here rather than, say, Omaha. “Listen, we’re No. 1 in terms of threat-risk vulnerability; it’s fair that we get the most money,” she says.

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Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Emma Rosenblum
• Table of Contents: November 20, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!