Proudly displayed in the window of my local Barnes and Noble are copies of a children\u2019s book called\u00a0Zohran Walks New York. It\u2019s a graphic novel that shows our city\u2019s new perma-grinning mayor meeting residents who are overwhelmingly happy to see him. A more instructive text for the children of Park Slope was tucked away in the corner of the basement:\u00a0Animal Farm. I bought it for my 11-year-old daughter at the weekend. She\u2019s into dystopian novels.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More people will become hooked on state benefits and more staff will be needed to shove piles of cash towards them<\/p>\n
I thought of Orwell\u2019s allegory of the Russian revolution this week when our mayor threatened to increase property tax to pay for his huge $127 billion budget. He says he will be left with no other choice if Governor Kathy Hochul refuses his plan to tax the rich, increasing income levies on the ultra-wealthy and corporations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The most obvious way of raising money was ignored: cutting costs. Mamdani has never had a job outside the public sector \u2013 save for a brief career as a rapper \u2013 nor has he ever run a large organization. The state has always taken care of him. And he wants the same for you, comrade.<\/p>\n
Orwell\u2019s pig leader, Napoleon, would be proud of the way Mamdani has presented this: the mayor vs the rich. Good vs evil. New York City is to become a superstate, a bureaucracy that will give to the needy by taking from the undeserving. But middle-class New Yorkers will inevitably pick up the tab. Remember Boxer, Orwell\u2019s carthorse? \u201cI will always work harder,\u201d he wheezes, before the pigs ship him off to a glue factory.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The size of Mamdani\u2019s new state will be hard to roll back even if New Yorkers replace him in four years time. The mayor is proposing $2.3 billion more in rental-assistance and $1 billion in \u201ccash assistance\u201d benefits over the next two years. More people will become hooked on state benefits and more staff will be needed to shove piles of cash towards them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The mayor intends to hire hundreds of lawyers to go after local businesses to \u201cprotect consumers\u201d and wants another 50 Department of Finance auditors to \u201cenhance\u201d tax revenue collection. Small businesses, the engine of the New York economy, are going to be squeezed.\u00a0He also plans to spend another $1.2 billion next year on immigration services, bringing the total cost to $10 billion for the city. \u201cIslam is a religion built upon a narrative of migration,\u201d Mamdani said at a recent inter-faith breakfast. More migrants will be welcomed, nevermind the cost to ordinary New Yorkers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The two-out, one-in rule for new public sector hires is to be scrapped, so we can expect an explosion in payroll in the next decade. Meanwhile, he wants to cut the NYPD budget of $6.4 billion by $22 million which effectively cancels an order by his predecessor Eric Adams to hire 5,000 new police officers.\u00a0<\/p>\n