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Mamdani Says Quiet Part Out Loud About Democrats’ Tax-Hiking Agenda

Elected Democrats rarely limit tax increases to wealthy families once in office.

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Believe it or not, Zohran Mamdani just did conservatives a great favor. Within weeks of taking office, he has exposed one of Democrats’ great deceptions over the past three-plus decades: that middle-class families can receive myriad government benefits and programs without having to pay more in taxes for them.

By conceding that his costly agenda may require raising taxes not only on “the rich” but the middle class, New York’s novice mayor broke one of the major taboos of left-wing politics. His proposal for a nearly 10 percent property tax hike on hard-working families epitomizes the “Kinsley gaffe,” in which a politician inadvertently speaks the truth — in this case, that the Democrat agenda necessitates massive tax increases on the middle class.

Raising Taxes on More than ‘the Rich’

To Democrats, the income resulting from individuals’ labor belongs to the government, not the individuals themselves. Calls for people to “pay their fair share,” or, as Mamdani termed it, “a little bit more,” never specify the maximum percentage government can confiscate in taxes — because, at their core, Democrats believe the state has the right to each and every penny.

While Mamdani adhered to this rhetorical formulation, he differed by applying it to the middle class. Since Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992 by calling himself a “new Democrat,” politicians of the center-left have consistently argued that the government’s needs could be met solely by raising taxes on “the rich.”

Even committed leftists have shied away from middle-class tax hikes, perceiving them as political kryptonite. During her 2020 presidential campaign, Elizabeth Warren put forward a single-payer health care plan that proposed tens of trillions of dollars in new federal spending — without calling for the middle class to pay so much as a dime. For his part, Bernie Sanders conceded in 2019 that his socialized medicine plan would require broad-based tax increases. Still, he claimed that “the vast majority of the people in this country will be paying significantly less for health care than they are right now.”

Of course, elected Democrats rarely limit tax increases to wealthy families once in office. After promising families with incomes below $250,000 not to raise “any of your taxes” in September 2008, Barack Obama, in February 2009, signed a children’s health insurance bill with a major increase in cigarette taxes, violating his “firm pledge” within weeks of taking office. The next year, Obamacare limited one of its major tax increases to “the rich” only by not indexing its income limits to inflation, such that the Medicare actuary estimated the “high-income” tax would impact 79 percent of households over the long term.

But even if politicians like Obama did not strictly follow their campaign promises once elected, they still felt obligated to go through the motions. In releasing a budget with a hefty property tax hike included, Mamdani felt no such compunctions to follow his promise last year to the middle class that “your taxes are not going up.” The swift and severe backlash his proposal has received demonstrates how households of modest means felt blindsided at the thought of having to pay more for government services.

Federal Debt Bomb Ahead

That shock will not remain confined to New York City’s five boroughs. Recent Congressional Budget Office estimates find that the federal debt will soon hit an all-time high as a share of the country’s gross domestic product. The skyrocketing federal spending of the Covid era has led to interest rate costs now set to hit $1 trillion this year, and more than double within the coming decade.

These data points demonstrate the scale of the challenge our nation faces; achieving fiscal sanity will require far more than raising taxes on “the rich.” And in exposing the consequences of unlimited spending on struggling families’ tax rates, Mamdani made as great a case as any for greater spending restraint — including entitlement reform — on the federal level.

Half a century ago, Margaret Thatcher famously observed that “socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money.” For most of the time since, Democrats have sought to reassure Americans that they could finance all the government that middle-class families want with someone else’s money — that only “the rich” need pay more. Mamdani’s property tax proposal has exposed that lie. Conservatives supporting greater fiscal responsibility should welcome this debate.

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