Zohran Mamdani already begging for more money!

Blasted through an $8 billion dollar surplus and now is looking at a $5.4 billion deficit.

He has already declared a budget crisis and has pushed back finalizing their budget for at least an additional ten days and likely longer. He is demanding that they are incapable of cutting spending and that Albany must pony up billions to bail them out. He is also suggesting that the city cannot submit a budget when the state has not submitted theirs, because (of course) he wants some guarantees about his need for additional funding from Albany.

How did they go from 8 billion in the black to over 5 billion in the red? What Mamdani is claiming is that previous administrations underestimated long term costs of other programs as well as underestimated recurring expenses. According to the socialist, the only way to fix it is to reallocate New York State funding to provide more money specifically for New York City and less money for everyone else in the state.

It needs to be a "structural reset" as described by the mayor.

The state has responded by suggesting that they already have provided over $3 billion in direct aid and approved additional taxes. Hochul seem pretty well set on the idea that they have done what they can and that they are not rolling over for the city on this one. She also reminded Mamdani that their budgets are on different time tables and that it is not the states responsibility to move quicker so NY City can submit their budget.

Herein lies the other problem. Mamdani recently gloated over the proposed taxes on second houses that would generate about $500 million a year, but when your deficit is ten times that, that seems like silly gloating. Moreover, that single tax may have soured billions of new investment in New York City. There is no realistic manner to find an additional 5 billion in new funding when your limited to new taxes coming only from what a city can do (no income tax, no corporate tax, etc...). The only way to accomplish this is to pressure the state and specifically the Governor.

Meanwhile, closing this 5.4 billion dollar deficit only gets them back to square one and keep things moving with limited new investment such as a single government run grocery store. Mamdani would need billions more per year to pay for the bulk of the socialistic programs he has promised. Good luck with that.