Call it the least surprising turn of events, but newly ensconced New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing a budget decision that will almost certainly impact those he claims to represent. In the wake of his first city budget, the mayor detailed a massive shortfall that he claimed could only be handled by following one of two “paths.”

One is the go-to socialist response: tax the wealth producers to extinction. And if that fails, the counterstrike is to tap the very folks who put him in office on a wave of “affordability.”

“There are two paths to bridge the city’s inherited budget gap,” Mamdani declared. “The first path is the most sustainable and fairest: raising taxes on the wealthiest and corporations, and ending the drain by fixing the imbalance between what the City provides the State and what we receive in return,” he pitched. And then came the kicker:

“If we do not go down the first path, the City will be forced to go down a second, more harmful path of property taxes and raiding our reserves — weakening our long-term fiscal footing and placing the onus for resolving this crisis on the backs of working and middle-class New Yorkers. We do not want to have to turn to such drastic measures to balance our budget. But, faced with no other choice, we will be forced to.” (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

“If we do not go down the first path, the City will be forced to go down a second, more harmful path of property taxes and raiding our reserves — weakening our long-term fiscal footing and placing the onus for resolving this crisis on the backs of working and middle-class New Yorkers. We do not want to have to turn to such drastic measures to balance our budget. But, faced with no other choice, we will be forced to.”

If there is a surefire way to scare off the mobile middle classes, it is to make their homes unaffordable. These people have invested substantial capital to have a house in the Big Apple and are often able to pack up and move out – how else does one explain the burgeoning suburbia just outside of city limits? And then, of course, there is the lure of low-tax states that encourage folks to bring their portable income along.

It’s worth mentioning that middle-class voters broke for Mamdani with 51% – perhaps assuming that his talk of punishing only the super wealthy would leave them well insulated.

No Third Way for Mamdani

As Sunshine State Gov. Ron DeSantis pointed out, Florida has 23+ million residents and a $117 billion budget. New York City (not the state, mind you) has roughly 8 million residents and a $127 billion proposed budget. It’s clear that the city that never sleeps has a spending problem, not a revenue issue.

And yet, the idea of cutting back on spending appears not to have occurred to the city’s first democratic socialist mayor.

When Mamdani mentions shortfalls in the budget, he does not appear to be talking about keeping the lights on. The 2024 budget was $107 billion, and the 2023 budget came in at just $101 billion. So where is the shortfall? It seems he’s pitching the notion that all the extras he promised on the campaign trail – the same promises that catapulted him to power – need to be paid for. That’s not a budget shortfall; it’s a shopaholic’s last line of defense.

The middle-class voters who thought they would escape the socialist cash grab and that only those richer than themselves would feel the brunt are awakening to a cold new reality. But it’s one that even a basic grasp of history could have shown. As with the introduction of the income tax in 1913, fewer than 1% of the population was on the hook. Fast forward to today, and roughly three-quarters of households are paying the federal levy.

Somewhere in a luxurious Midtown apartment, former Governor and 2025 mayoral hopeful Andrew Cuomo is dying to deliver to the city that rejected him a big fat “I told you so.”

About the author: Mark is Liberty Nation Editor-in-Chief after previously serving as Managing Editor for four years. Steeped in US Conservative policy and politics, he is the host of our flagship radio show airing across the country on the Radio America Network.

Source: This article was published by Liberty Nation

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