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Title: "Warmth of Collectivism Mamdani Declares ‘Historic’ Crisis After Blowing Deadline, Pushes State Bailout"
Source:
RedState.com
URL Source: https://redstate.com/ben-smith/2026 ... -pushes-state-bailout-n2201804
Published: Apr 29, 2026
Author: Ben Smith
Post Date: 2026-04-29 10:18:30 by Mudboy Slim
Keywords: None
Views: 4
New York City's self-described democratic socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has made history, just not the kind worth bragging about. Barely months into office, he has blown past a statutory budget deadline for the first time since 2015, declared a fiscal crisis of "historic magnitude," and responded to a $5.4 billion budget gap the way any good socialist would: by asking someone else to pay for it. Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin appeared together at City Hall on Tuesday to announce they would delay the executive budget, originally due May 1, until May 12 while lobbying Albany to bail out a city that, under their preferred ideology, was supposed to be thriving. The pair are pressing for more direct state aid and a reduction in the state's pass-through entity tax credit, a change they claim would generate nearly $1 billion in new revenue. In other words: tax the job creators a little more and hope no one notices. Mamdani framed the moment with his signature flair for drama. “New York City faces a budget crisis of a historic magnitude. We inherited a deficit larger than any since the Great Recession.” Yes, he inherited it. That word, "inherited," is doing an enormous amount of heavy lifting here. It's the rhetorical equivalent of burning down a kitchen and then blaming the previous owner for installing a stove. Former Mayor Eric Adams left the city with $8 billion in reserves; Mamdani's team has since claimed those numbers masked deeper structural issues tied to recurring expenses. Conveniently, Mamdani and his allies have argued that the prior administration "poisoned" the budget by underestimating long-term costs. Adams, for his part, offered a pointed two-word rebuttal to Mamdani's broader governing philosophy. “Free is a lie.” Truer words have rarely been spoken in New York City politics. Mamdani insists the gap cannot be closed through cuts alone. “We cannot close this deficit with savings alone. We need new revenue, and we need a structural reset in our relationship with the state.” A "structural reset" means the city wants more money from Albany. The centerpiece of that ask is reducing the pass-through entity tax credit from 100 percent to 75 percent, a move Mamdani cheerfully framed as making "the wealthiest pay their fair share," and which city officials claim would generate nearly $1 billion in new revenue. Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who has nonetheless managed to retain a passing familiarity with economic reality, was having none of it. “It’s not happening. We’re not changing PTET [Pass-Through Entity Tax].” She also pushed back on the idea that the state’s delayed budget should dictate the city’s timeline. “We don’t have to be done in order for you to do yours. We’re on different timetables.” Hochul noted that the state has already handed the city more than $4 billion in assistance, including $1.5 billion in direct aid, $1.2 billion in child care funding, and a proposed pied-à-terre tax on expensive second homes expected to generate another $500 million. She has also, by her own count, urged city leaders to find spending reductions in "January, February, March, and April.” The advice, apparently, has yet to land. To be fair, Mamdani and Menin do point to a measurable imbalance. New York City contributes 55.6 percent of state revenue but receives 41.7 percent of state expenditures. But the mayor has also made clear he has no intention of scaling back his sweeping progressive agenda, one that, by his own admission, would require billions in additional spending beyond the $12 billion needed to close the current gap. He said as much in January: "We will not allow the failures of the prior administration to dull the ambitions of our own.” So to recap: New York City has a $5.4 billion hole, a mayor who won't cut spending, a governor who won't raise taxes, and a budget deadline quietly pushed to mid-May. The first act of the Mamdani administration's grand socialist experiment has produced exactly what critics predicted: not abundance, but a very expensive bill handed to everyone else. As Adams put it: Free is a lie.
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