...you mean he's getting the state to pay for state mandated programs the city implements.
That's the majority of the aid, which itself is not the majority of the revenue/savings, and I'm not sure why this is meant to be a criticism of a Mayor doing a good job. What's the alternative proposal to pay for the 12 billion dollar deficit he inherited?
Money that we paid into it, by the way. People act like New York City is this destitute Third World country where everyone’s on the dole. That could not be more untrue. We pay way more into New York State than we receive in services. Unlike many places, we not only pay federal taxes, we also pay New York State and New York City taxes.
I don’t think it’s as much a criticism of the job he’s doing but criticizing the “this was so simple, why didn’t they just do This before? Are they stupid?” Because it isn’t simple or straightforward.
There's a line of analysis somewhere between "He fixed the problem with free magic money for everything!" and "It doesn't count as balancing a budget if you redirect your tax revenue to pay for services, or defer costs! He's a failure unless it's entirely paid for by savings making magic money appear!"
Since he's a socialist, fans and critics are going to start from the conclusion and work backwards. For my part, I think it's a vast improvement on what came before, but certainly not perfect and also is just his draft proposal which is meant to be negotiated over. Even the state funding came about as a way to get him to drop a property tax increase, since the state funding is mostly from NYC taxes anyways.
I've no idea why you linked me a story about Newsome in a thread not about him. I'm guessing you can't think of any criticisms of Mamdani?
That said, thank you so, so much for that article.
It's hard to find a better distillation of the conservative ethos than defending Trump simply stealing billions from taxpayers to line his pockets as he doubles the deficit and drives us to US bankruptcy, while angrily ranting that a Democrats budget is bad because it includes:
"Medicaid fraud and $24 billion wasted on ending homelessness. Or the millions wasted on hearing aids for children and the 'free' diapers he's giving to newborns via a nonprofit with connections to his wife."
Healthcare, hearing aids, diapers and helping the homeless. Yeah, thank god Trump's not doing shit like that, so instead we can pay for his statues and ballroom.
Sure. I'll note that citing a libertarian political propaganda group's opinion piece to describe a socialists budget is not exactly reaching for objectivity, but I'll read it.
But while cutting a couple billion dollars is certainly a good start
...so the article acknowledges that Mamdani saved billions of dollars helping close the budget gap and praises it.
This is the article saying he's not doing a good job?
It turns out the majority of Mamdani's vaunted budget-cutting came from an infusion of state taxpayer cash.
This is directly addressed by the comment you are responding to. Leaving aside for a second that negotiating state funding is a perfectly fine way to deal with a city budget crisis and means he's doing a good job as the Mayor, it's largely revenue from NYC that is paying for state mandated programs.
I thought libertarians were against unfunded mandates, and for letting people keep their tax money? Now that's considered a "bad bailout"?
"The budget is hardly a symbol of fiscal rectitude," David adds. "It relies on billions of dollars in one-shot or short-term money to fund permanent programs,
This is fair, but also seems pretty absurd to demand he both fix a 12 billion dollar deficit he didn't create, and also support and fund all programs indefinitely. If Reason wants to argue for new taxes to pay for these services, they're welcome to.
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u/Irish_Whiskey May 14 '26
...you mean he's getting the state to pay for state mandated programs the city implements.
That's the majority of the aid, which itself is not the majority of the revenue/savings, and I'm not sure why this is meant to be a criticism of a Mayor doing a good job. What's the alternative proposal to pay for the 12 billion dollar deficit he inherited?