Mamdani, in $127 Billion Budget, Puts New York City Taxpayers on the Spot

It’s hard to see the logic of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s saber-rattling to push Governor Kathy Hochul and Albany Democrats to raise taxes — with Hizzoner’s own constituents as the collateral damage if his gambit fails. The Marxist mayor, in his $127 billion budget proposal today, is doubling down on his demand for a statewide tax hike, even though Mrs. Hochul opposes it. The kicker is that he plans to raise New Yorkers’ property taxes if Albany fails to act.A “false choice” is how the Citizens Budget Commission, urging spending trims, describes Mr. Mamdani’s démarche. Pointing to the city’s multi-billion dollar budget deficit — recently pegged at $12 billion, but now reduced to $5.4 billion in the mayor’s telling — Mr. Mamdani offers “two paths.” The first is that “Albany can raise taxes on the ultra-wealthy and the most profitable corporations and address the fiscal imbalance between our city and state.”That’s a reference to Mr. Mamdani’s campaign pledge to raise income taxes on high-earners across the Empire State to pay for his agenda of “free” government benefits for city residents. Mrs. Hochul has already designated this plan a non-starter, for now, by excluding it from her proposed state budget. The mayor, unbowed, now avers that if state lawmakers decline to follow through on his proposal, he will extract the funds from New York City residents.A “last resort,” Mr. Mamdani calls his fallback option, to “balance the budget on the backs of working people using the only tools at the City’s disposal.” Has a previous mayor ever sought to use New York City residents as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Albany? The brazenness of this tactic could speak, on the one hand, to the new mayor’s limited political experience, having served but two terms in the state assembly.On the other hand, this ham-fisted proposal could reflect the confidence that Mr. Mamdani, in the vanguard of his party’s ascendant far left, will be able to build up a political head of steam that will overcome the governor’s opposition to a tax increase. These columns have already marked the likelihood that Mr. Mamdani would rather attempt to steamroll Mrs. Hochul rather than undertake the hard work of fiscal restraint.An ally of Mr. Mamdani is ratcheting up the pressure on Mrs. Hochul. The public advocate, Jumaane Williams, says the mayor has given the governor “the opportunity to say I am going to think about all New Yorkers, and not just the wealthiest.” The city’s fiscal watchdog, the budget commission, has warned against raising taxes. It balks at Mr. Mamdani’s plan to raid the Rainy Day Fund, which “is intended to be used in the case of a recession.”The city council’s Republican minority leader, David Carr, is warning that a property tax hike “ has got to be among the worst ideas imaginable to make our budget gap smaller.” The city hasn’t raised property taxes on its residents since 2003. That was an increase of some 18.5 percent, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg at the time sought to palm off on state lawmakers the notion that the boost was “temporary.” The state comptroller, too, is cautioning that Mr. Mamdani’s new fiscal roadmap “marks a substantial shift in the city’s approach to budgeting.” The mayor’s plan features what Thomas DiNapoli calls “chronically underbudgeted expenses and new spending risks,” even if he credits Mr. Mamdani for noting “the fiscal risks ahead.” Will Mrs. Hochul have the mettle to hold the line on taxes in the face of Hizzoner’s threats?

Mamdani, in $127 Billion Budget, Puts New York City Taxpayers on the Spot

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