{"id":69559,"date":"2026-05-13T15:29:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T15:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/69559\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T15:29:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T15:29:15","slug":"zohran-mamdanis-nyc-budget-doesnt-add-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/69559\/","title":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani\u2019s NYC budget doesn\u2019t add up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zohran Mamdani and his claque of supporters are applauding the release of his first proposed city budget as having, in his words<\/a>, refuted the \u201cfailed politics\u201d of thinking that \u201causterity was the answer to adversity.\u201d The new budget closes a two-year $12 billion gap \u201cwithout slashing the services people depend on, without raising property taxes and without asking working families to pay for a crisis they did not create\u201d.<\/p>\n

The math behind Mamdani\u2019s claims is a bit fuzzy. Most of the money to make his budget whole comes from the state, but he promises to save more than a billion dollars locally with such vague guarantees as \u201cimproving the efficiency of public services\u201d, \u201cimproving our financial management\u201d, and \u201caccurately estimating expenses\u201d. This kind of anodyne, non-specific corporate-speak would elicit howls of laughter at a shareholders\u2019 meeting, but municipal budgeting, apparently, is open to a certain amount of handwaving.<\/p>\n

Nowhere else, for instance, would spending more money be counted as savings. But to rein in \u201cdue process cases\u201d \u2014 costing the city $1.5 billion a year to reimburse parents of special-needs children for inadequate school provision \u2014 Mamdani plans to hire more specialist teachers. \u201cThis,\u201d his budget summary explains, \u201cwill reduce cases and generate $149 million in annual savings.\u201d Well, maybe it will, but those new teachers won\u2019t work for free. This sounds more like shifting the cost around than figuring out how to spend less money.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the Mayor proposes to amortize the city\u2019s contributions to its underfunded pension funds, which \u201cwill result in savings for years to come, including $1.64 billion in FY27\u201d. But all this does is kick the unpleasant payment can down the road to 2033. The pensions still have to be paid out, which is why responsible budgeting demands prefunding future liabilities as best as possible now. It\u2019s true that the city\u2019s pension funds, while not fully funded, are better funded than the national average, but calling it \u201csavings\u201d when you decide to put off paying a bill is a bit of a stretch.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s approach to budgeting is somewhat backwards to begin with. He insists<\/a> that he inherited a budget crisis of a \u201chistoric magnitude\u201d akin to the 2009 Great Recession because his predecessor Eric Adams failed to budget for certain foreseeable expenses, such as cash assistance or helping people meet their rent. But the Great Recession saw a decline in municipal revenue, while tax collection is currently up. Is it really a \u201ccrisis\u201d when revenue is increasing but you want to spend even more money than you have on hand?<\/p>\n

In the lead-up to the budget process, Mamdani ginned up an army of fans to bleat, \u201cTax the rich!\u201d whenever Governor Kathy Hochul started speaking. \u201cTaxing the rich\u201d has become the obvious answer to every problem. On Tax Day, Mamdani filmed<\/a> a video standing outside billionaire Ken Griffin\u2019s $250 million apartment, stuck his face up to the lens to create a leering, fisheye effect and gloated: \u201cWe\u2019re taxing the rich!\u201d<\/p>\n

This Alinskyite tactic \u2014 personalizing an issue by caricaturing and demonizing one\u2019s opponent \u2014 backfired when Griffin said<\/a> he found the video \u201ccreepy\u201d, and indicated that he planned to begin moving his operations to sunnier climes, where wealthy employers are welcomed instead of derided.<\/p>\n

Mamdani was wrongfooted by so forcefully declaring class war against a representative of the billionaire class which, like it or not, funds New York\u2019s extensive and sometimes shockingly generous social welfare state. The Mayor seems not to have grasped that the states compete with one another to attract rich people, that New York City does not have a central bank to print money, and that billionaires are an important constituency even if he believes they shouldn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

The Mayor made it through his first budget season without fulfilling his promise to tax the local rich \u2014 a new pied-\u00e0-terre tax will only apply to non-residents who own expensive apartments, though the details of how those assessments will be carried out are cloudy \u2014 and other features of his agenda have been delayed. Hochul seems to have come to his rescue for now, but there\u2019s no telling how their relationship will develop in the years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani and his claque of supporters are applauding the release of his first proposed city budget as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148],"tags":[32076,486,565,3913,3153,560,3202,553],"class_list":{"0":"post-69559","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-zohran-mamdani","8":"tag-budget-crisis","9":"tag-democrats","10":"tag-eric-adams","11":"tag-kathy-hochul","12":"tag-ken-griffin","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-uncategorized","15":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116567983101985494","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}