{"id":137575,"date":"2026-02-18T17:11:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T17:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/137575\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T17:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T17:11:12","slug":"mamdanis-heist-on-hochul-and-new-yorks-middle-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/137575\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani’s heist on Hochul and New York’s middle class"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor Zohran Mamdani declared war on the city\u2019s middle class Tuesday, insisting that Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s refusal to raise personal taxes on the rich and boost corporate taxes<\/a> leaves him \u201cno choice\u201d except to hike city property taxes nearly 10%.<\/p>\n

We told you so, gov \u2014 that Mamdani would stab you in the back<\/a> at the first chance, and he did.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s given him his child-care program, and $1.5 billion for the city budget<\/a> gap; he repays her with blatant political extortion<\/p>\n

Plus: So much for his promise to reform property taxes.<\/a><\/p>\n

And so what if the hike would also lead to big rent increases<\/a>, the reverse of his campaign promises?<\/p>\n

He\u2019d also draw down the city \u201crainy day\u201d reserve, which is supposed to be for emergencies, when then only \u201ccrisis\u201d is a lack of cash to chase his socialist dreams.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe do not want to have to turn to such drastic measures to balance our budget,\u201d the mayor announced<\/a> as he released his preliminary budget, \u201cbut, faced with no other choice, we will be forced to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cForced to\u201d because he wants to boost city outlays by 10%, $11 billion, to $127 billion total. He\u2019s not being forced. He\u2019s being greedy and irresponsible.<\/p>\n

Of course, the other way to balance the budget doesn\u2019t involve raising anybody\u2019s taxes: It\u2019s the same solution every household faces when not enough money\u2019s<\/a> coming in to pay for everything it would like to buy \u2014 namely, to spend less.<\/p>\n

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Mamdani keeps blaming the \u201cbudget crisis\u201d on Mayor Eric Adams\u2019 supposed \u201cunderbudgeting,\u201d yet Mamdani\u2019s fellow lefties always slammed Adams for not spending enough.<\/p>\n

The new mayor demands these tax hikes to fund his own \u201cfree stuff\u201d agenda<\/a>.<\/p>\n

E.g., he wants to add over $1 billion in new \u201ccash assistance\u201d benefits \u201crelated to caseload increases\u201d over the next two years, and $2.3 billion in \u201cre-estimated\u201d rental-assistance funding for the same period; why not keep cash giveaways at today\u2019s level of $700 million and deduct the savings from the \u201cgap\u201d that Mamdani insists he can only close by raising taxes?<\/p>\n

The Department Education already eats 40% of city outlays, yet he\u2019s budgeting more than half-a-billion bucks to cap class sizes, a gift to the teachers union \u2014 without any demand or plan for improved student outcomes.<\/p>\n

And other new spending is downright toxic: The mayor means to hire hundreds of new lawyers \u2014 signaling a clear intent to bleed local businesses in the name of \u201cconsumer protection\u201d \u2014 and to add 50 Department of Finance auditors to squeeze city taxpayers.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s all kinds of ways to save money that the left refuses to see. <\/p>\n

Retired city employees pay nothing toward their lifetime health insurance, for example; the city\u2019s legally on the hook for pension obligations, but health-insurance costs are negotiable, and could mean big savings.<\/p>\n

Mamdani also aims to eliminate the \u201c2-out, 1-in\u201d rule for new hires, which keeps employee headcount under control. Getting rid of this standard will accelerate agency headcount, which means added payroll costs for decades.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t fall for Mamdani\u2019s insistence that the city is deep in a budgetary crisis. The left always claims that not having more of your money to spend is a dire emergency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani declared war on the city\u2019s middle class Tuesday, insisting that Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s refusal to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[14927,15660,304,426,9,11,10,49,51,50,299,7754,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-137575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-city-budget","9":"tag-corporate-taxes","10":"tag-editorial","11":"tag-kathy-hochul","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-new-york-state","16":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","17":"tag-new-york-state-news","18":"tag-opinion","19":"tag-property-taxes","20":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}