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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a press conference at Staten Island University Hospital Community Park on April 27, 2026 in NYC. Mayor Mamdani was joined by Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., government officials and members of the New York New Jersey FIFA World Cup 2026 Host Committee. (Michael M. Santiago\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
New York Continues to Self-Destruct<\/p>\n
After returning from a two-week sojourn in Europe, I waded\u00a0through a stack of hometown newspapers to learn that New York is\u00a0sinking even deeper into the fiscal, economic, and social abyss.<\/p>\n
Here’s the latest . . .<\/p>\n
Two months after the state’s fiscal year ended, a budget was finally approved.<\/p>\n
The result: Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., who insists she is a great\u00a0negotiator, once again, gave away the farm to state legislators.<\/p>\n
Her original record-breaking $268 billion budget proposal is now a\u00a0whopping $277 billion.<\/p>\n
And the $9 billion increase will be funded by\u00a0various one-shots.\u00a0Fiscal gimmicks will push the projected two-year\u00a0cumulative deficit to $32 billion.<\/p>\n
Being an election year, the budget is full of goodies for the unions.<\/p>\n
The cost-cutting pension plan that was championed by then-Gov. Andrew\u00a0Cuomo, D-N.Y., in 2012, was shelved.<\/p>\n
The retroactive pension increases for state,\u00a0municipal and public-school employees will cost taxpayers more than\u00a0$500 million annually.<\/p>\n
To placate the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) which represents healthcare\u00a0workers, Medicaid spending (which is the\u00a0highest in the nation per capita) will spike 12%.<\/p>\n
The budget also\u00a0earmarks $100 million to subsidize the SEIU\u2019s benefit fund.<\/p>\n
How crazy\u00a0is that?<\/p>\n
To silence the whining teacher union leaders, Albany threw even\u00a0more money to support failing schools.<\/p>\n
The unions also scored a big victory over New York City’s schools.<\/p>\n
Due to annual declines in student enrollments, the unions, fearing\u00a0layoffs, arm-twisted Albany in 2022 to approve legislation that limits\u00a0class sizes to 20 students for kindergarten to third grade, 23 students for\u00a0grades four through eight, and 25 students for high school classes.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0law forces the\u00a0city to hire 10,000 to 12,000 new teachers that will cost\u00a0taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n
To accommodate the city’s request for a two-year delay in lowering\u00a0class sizes, Gov. Hochul gave the teachers unions a super deal to\u00a0placate them.<\/p>\n
In return for the delay the City must give every teacher\u00a0“differential pay” of $8,500 in the school year that begins in September\u00a0and $9,500 the following year.<\/p>\n
With over 80,000 teachers, taxpayers will have to shell out $1.4\u00a0billion during the next two school years.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0legislature has also sent to Hochul’s desk a bill that deletes\u00a0from every state law, the words “mother”\u00a0and “father.”\u00a0The new terms\u00a0will be “gestating parent” and\u00a0“non-gestating parent.”<\/p>\n
Wai Wah Chin of\u00a0the Manhattan Institute noted that the ideologically-driven law, “objectifying\u00a0language devalues the mothers and fathers who work to build strong\u00a0families that mold their children’s emotional, educational and economic\u00a0outcomes.”<\/p>\n
She added, “It undermines the foundational roles that for\u00a0millennia have sustained societies. It erodes the cultural and legal\u00a0recognition that complementary parenting benefits kids most.”<\/p>\n
Another reckless scheme hatched by radical Democrats: A\u00a0constitutional amendment to repeal the ban on congressional\u00a0gerrymandering.<\/p>\n
If approved by the voters in 2027, the amendment\u00a0would permit Democrat legislators to redraw congressional lines at any\u00a0time for any reason.<\/p>\n
It is not any better in New York City.\u00a0Mayor\u00a0Zohran\u00a0Mamdani, attempting to tax anything that moves, has\u00a0proposed a bloated budget that is balanced with one-shot revenues and\u00a0the deferral of pensions contributions.<\/p>\n
Such fiscal gimmicks brought the\u00a0city to the edge of bankruptcy in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
Mamdani may be Mayor John Lindsay redux.<\/p>\n
On another front\u00a0\u2014\u00a0in May hate crimes against Jews were up 70%,\u00a0versus a year ago.<\/p>\n
What is the mayor doing about it?<\/p>\n
Not much.<\/p>\n
He has been too busy campaigning with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for antisemitic\u00a0
candidates running for Congress in this month’s Democratic\u00a0primaries.<\/p>\n
Take the case of\u00a0congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier\u00a0(DAC), who is challenging incumbent representative Adriano Espaillat\u00a0in the 13th Congressional District\u00a0covering\u00a0Upper Manhattan and West Bronx.<\/p>\n
DAC, who Mamdani calls “a perfect candidate,”\u00a0is an unabashed member of the looney left.\u00a0She has even marched in pro-Hamas rallies hailing Oct. 7, 2023, and has saIsrael “does not exist.”<\/p>\n
On a Twitter post DAC wrote, “I agree the U.S. wanton violence is\u00a0categorically incomparable to the worst things Hamas has ever done or\u00a0ever could do.” The U.S., she proclaimed, \u201cis a f******\u00a0disgrace. Joe Biden is\u00a0“a rapist” and \u201ca war criminal.”<\/p>\n
Other crazy statements made by DAC:<\/p>\n
“All deportation is wrong.”<\/p>\n
“I forgot to get napkins, so I just wiped my hand on the American\u00a0flag behind me.”<\/p>\n
DAC has called for the police, prisons and ICE to be abolished.\u00a0She\u00a0also supports the suspension of rent and mortgage payments.<\/p>\n
All this extremist blather, and not one mainstream Democrat is\u00a0expressing outrage!<\/p>\n
Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.,\u00a0Gov.\u00a0Hochul, and state Democratic chairman Jay Jacobs are\u00a0nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n
Their cowardly behavior is beyond the pale.<\/p>\n
The Democratic Party of governors, Hugh Carey, Mario Cuomo, and\u00a0Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, is dead.<\/p>\n
And the new crowd that’s taking over the\u00a0party won’t be satisfied\u00a0until they destroy New York\u2019s cultural and financial foundations.<\/p>\n
(A related story may be found here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n George J. Marlin, a former executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is the author of “The American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact,” and “Christian Persecutions in the Middle East: A 21st Century Tragedy.” Read more George J. Marlin Insider articles \u2014 Click Here Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a9 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a press conference at Staten Island University Hospital Community Park…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[426,9,24,11,10,49,51,50,79185,45509,82],"class_list":["post-278088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-kathy-hochul","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-service-employees-international-union","tag-staten-island-university-hospital-community-park","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278088","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=278088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}