NEW YORK, NY October 31, 2005 —Fernando Ferrer and Michael Bloomberg traded jabs on affordable housing, education, and economic development in their first televised debate yesterday. WNYC's Andrea Bernstein has more.

REPORTER: Ferrer accused the Mayor of spending too much time on the Olympics, and not enough developing jobs and housing for what he called "ordinary new Yorkers." The Mayor accused Ferrer of having a a confused mix of proposals to raise and cut taxes and challenged Ferrer on his knowledge of the facts. The two sparred repeatedly on the Mayors supprot of the national GOP. After the debate the mayor defended his record.

BLOOMBERG: I gave more money to Bill Clinton when he was running for office than I gave to George Bush, the big amount of money I gave was to a non partisan thing, the host committee.

REPORTER: That's techically correct. Bloomberg never gave to Bush-Cheney and he did give $2000 to Bill Clinton. But he also gave $7 million to the committee hosting the Republican National Convention here last year. And he's given nearly half a million dollars to other Republican causes in recent years. For WNYC, I'm Andrea Bernstein.