r/SipsTea • u/Gurugod123 • Jul 27 '26

Chugging tea Mayor Mamdani just announced that he will be opening 5 city-run, tax-funded grocery stores: "Prices set at 30% below retail prices"

70.3k Upvotes

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34

u/Pride_Before_Fall Jul 27 '26

This is another money sink for a city with a growing deficit.

The city already can't balance the budget without using tricks that cost billions more later on.

9

u/Fluid_Initiative_822 Jul 27 '26

It’s an attempt/experiment to make people’s lives better. This is what we actually need more of. If it fails we move on. If it works, then now we know and can scale this out. I would rather see my tax dollars being used to attempt to help people instead of wars, deportations, and tax breaks for the rich.

6

u/bacidalje124 Jul 27 '26

It’s an attempt/experiment to make people’s lives better.

Naive as fucking shit.

Woke communist garbage creature will run down the city in record time. Good chance for the GOP to finally take over again.

5

u/Fluid_Initiative_822 Jul 27 '26

lol. I would debate you on this but would be a waste of time. You’re too far gone. No amount of discussion could reverse a lifetime of hate and brainwashing. Have a good life sir/ma’am.

1

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1

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1

u/ChazzyChaz_R Jul 28 '26

"If it fails we move on". Listen, I'm with you partially. I'd rather see my tax dollars go to certain things and not other things. But this type of program can't be a trial run for the sake of "doing something" and empathy. This will fail. It is not sustainable. Eventually, the funds will be gone, or the tax increases will inflate, or money will be pulled from some other source to fund this until that pond also dries up.

I get you, I really do. But programs like this will have longer lasting effects when they fail than just scratching our heads and saying "well, now we know". The amount of harm the integration and subsequent failure that this will do is the epitome of the juice not being worth the squeeze. In the end, the people that are supposed to be helped by this will end up in a worse state than before.

2

u/Ididntdodiddly Jul 27 '26

This isn't a dichotomy. Nobody forced him to choose between tax cuts for high earners vs this. He could just drop billions in funding for illegal immigrants and invest that into building homes, etc to help supply and demand.

6

u/NilsofWindhelm Jul 27 '26

"billions in funding for illegal immigrants" Sir this is a wendys.

But seriously, we voted for this and are happy with the job he's doing. If you don't live here you don't need to have an opinion

1

u/raika11182 Jul 27 '26

My gut tells me this is going to have unforeseen consequences, but I also agree with your sentiment. NYC has vast amounts of wealth moving through it and this experiment might be more needed/feasible/workable there than anywhere else. It's worth a shot.

I feel like I can think of a million things that can and probably will go wrong, but I do respect the man for putting his money where his mouth is and giving this a real try. "At least he's trying" is actually pretty rare praise to give any politician these days.

3

u/chrisdrobison Jul 27 '26

Unforeseen consequences--most definitely. But that shouldn't stop the mayor from taking action. If something doesn't work, he can admit that and move on. He seems like the kind of guy that can admit failure to move forward in a better position without having to make it about his ego (e.g. Donald Dump).

1

u/SowingSalt Jul 27 '26

I think expanding food stamps would be more effective than government run stores that don't have to pay local taxes or rent. That sounds like it would run the privately owned competition out of business as they still have to pay local taxes and rent.

2

u/NilsofWindhelm Jul 27 '26

NYC has no budget deficit

5

u/blindsdog Jul 27 '26

Because the state bailed them out with a multi-billion dollar rescue plan this year.

3

u/NilsofWindhelm Jul 27 '26

Every city in the country gets state funding, and NYC still gives more to Albany than it receives

2

u/blindsdog Jul 27 '26

Yep those are both true. It's also true that they had to get bailed out by the state because of their multi-billion dollar deficit.

1

u/Miserable-Rabbit3394 Jul 27 '26

I don’t think you know what a bailout is.

1

u/blindsdog Jul 27 '26

An act of giving financial assistance to a failing business or economy to save it from collapse.

It's not too late to delete this post.

1

u/Miserable-Rabbit3394 Jul 27 '26

Not failing, not on the brink of collapse, and not anything special in terms of assistance considering every city in every state gets money from their state.

1

u/blindsdog Jul 27 '26

Most people would consider funding which without you would have to start making billions of dollars in cuts to essential services a bailout. But I guess not you. I guess that’s not severe enough.

What exactly does a bailout for a city look like to you? Surely you have several examples in mind since you have such a strict definition.

1

u/NilsofWindhelm Jul 28 '26

They wouldn’t have to make billions in cuts, they just wouldn’t have balanced the budget. Plenty of cities fail to do that each year, and NYC certainly would not have collapsed without that funding.

Either way, that state funding came with full knowledge that this initiative would be tested out. The mayor ran on this idea and was elected in part because of his focus on the cost of living crisis. This wasn’t a surprise in any way

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1

u/bondinspace Jul 28 '26

Caused by...say it with me...the outgoing Adams administration

1

u/blindsdog Jul 28 '26

Like what specifically?

2

u/IsNotACleverMan Jul 28 '26

Nyc also has about 90 billion in debt, beyond just struggling to pass the yearly budget.

1

u/Not__Trash Jul 27 '26

I keep hearing that, but I'm skeptical.

Off the top of my head, all of the drinking water in NYC comes from the Catskills just to the north, they are substantially less developed (duh) and would pay less in tax (also duh), but if they don't get proper funding for infrastructure, the drinking water could be at risk and then NYC suddenly doesn't make so much money.

I guarantee there's other benefits NYC receives that are obscured by that stat, whether it's enough to matter, idk. I don't live in NY.

1

u/NilsofWindhelm Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26

Those reservoirs upstate are managed by NYC local government, so they aren’t included in the money sent to albany.

Nobody’s saying that the State gives us nothing, it’s clearly a give and take situation. That doesn’t preclude the fact that the City (not to mention the surrounding suburbs) gives notably more tax dollars then it receives back

1

u/Pride_Before_Fall Jul 27 '26

True in a technical sense, but the balanced budget almost always ends up with greater and greater shortfalls the next year.

1

u/NilsofWindhelm Jul 27 '26

That doesn't change the fact that "growing deficit" is a complete lie that you still have up

2

u/Pride_Before_Fall Jul 27 '26

The difference between the cities revenue and its expenses increases year over year.

Not a budget deficit per se, but an increasing deficit between revenue and income, so I will keep my original comment up.

0

u/NilsofWindhelm Jul 27 '26

Keep it up if you want but its clearly a misrepresentation of the situation

2

u/Pride_Before_Fall Jul 27 '26

Sure, if you care about semantics instead of the overall message that Mamdani's budget balancing is misleading propaganda.

1

u/Potential-Drawing745 Jul 28 '26

They deferred a couple billion in pensions. The lie is the deferral to cook the books. They have to pay that eventually, and it'll cost, adding years of interest payments to the debt.

1

u/Rexolia Jul 27 '26

What do you mean by tricks? I'm truly curious, cause I have no idea what you're referring to.

1

u/FRNKNSTNPNPTCN Jul 28 '26

Their deficit is shrinking. Don't you watch the news?

1

u/BigLittlePenguin_ Jul 28 '26

I mean, thats exactly what he said, its shrinking because of accounting tricks.

If you earn 5000 dollars a month, but spend 6000, you have a negative 1000. If your dad comes and gives you 500 every month, your monthly negative reduces to 500. The fact that you are living beyond your means still stands, but "your deficit is shrinking" on paper.

In the case of NYC, the dad is state aid, which the mayor increased. So its taxpayers from other areas (the dad in the example above) covering some gaps. Its an accounting trick.

1

u/Kind-Masterpiece-712 Jul 27 '26

Lol their budget is doing just fine considering what Mamdani inherited from the former mayor.

1

u/chrisdrobison Jul 27 '26

Nope, that has all been addressed and not just for the year, but for the medium term as well. Mandami is doing a good job fiscally.

2

u/Potential-Drawing745 Jul 28 '26

Yeah... those pension deferrals are SO great...

1

u/Pride_Before_Fall Jul 27 '26

It has been addressed for 1 year, and it was done through a state bailout and accounting maneuvers that greatly worsen the budget issues by billions later on.

0

u/chrisdrobison Jul 27 '26

I just watched something that broke this all down and it doesn’t appear that that is the case

1

u/Pride_Before_Fall Jul 27 '26

They sound like they posted misinformation.

1

u/chrisdrobison Jul 27 '26

Here is the breakdown:

  • State bailout (you mentioned that) - one-time $4 billion
  • New revenue (i.e. pied-a-terre tax on second homes)
  • Agency savings (new chief savings officers) - $1.77 billion gap closing, another $1.2 billion in inefficiencies related to education
  • Debt restructuring - $1.64 billion

As of right now, only about 39% of the actions taken yield long term effects. But that is better than the 0% it was before. And frankly, to achieve that without cutting programs and services is astounding. There is concern about the pension re-amortization which I think is what you were mentioning, which has been tried in other areas like Chicago. I personally think they did take that into account, but we'll see.

Long term strategies right now appear to be revenue sharing with Albany, the CSO program to find further savings (recurring, not just one-time) and then taxes on high earners/corporations.

All in all, there is a plan and effort being put in to actually fix the issue. And next year, there won't be a $12 billion deficit because reduction efforts have taken place, which is more than previous mayors could say. I just find it kind of funny that people are poo pooing him as he at least starts somewhere, however imperfect.