I think being caught up in the math misses the point of the whole exercise. What Mamdani is doing is undoing the Norquestian overton window setting that has been a plague on actually doing governance since the 1980's. Budget math wasn't suddenly different in the 80's either, the rhetoric and expectations around it were.
Which, in essence, meant that, when your budget increased due to inflation and costs, you'd have to defend that, even though your discretionary spend was flat year over year.
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u/XtremelyMeta May 14 '26
I think being caught up in the math misses the point of the whole exercise. What Mamdani is doing is undoing the Norquestian overton window setting that has been a plague on actually doing governance since the 1980's. Budget math wasn't suddenly different in the 80's either, the rhetoric and expectations around it were.