Well that was fast.
Zohran Mamdani has been mayor of New York City for less than a month and he is already talking about raising taxes on the ‘wealthy’ to make up the city’s budget deficit, which he claims is on par with the Great Recession.
Get ready to see a lot of Uhauls leaving the city.
CNBC reports:
New York Mayor Mamdani says city must hike taxes on wealthy to fill $12 billion deficit
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday said the city’s wealthiest must pay more in taxes to help fill the staggering budget deficit of more than $12 billion that he was left by his predecessor.
“This is at a scale that’s actually greater than what we saw here in New York City during the Great Recession,” Mamdani said of that budget hole during an interview with CNBC “Squawk Box” co-anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin at City Hall.
The Democrat, who took office on Jan. 1 after campaigning on a platform of hiking taxes on the rich, attributed the big deficit to “gross fiscal mismanagement.”
He pointed to actions taken by former Mayor Eric Adams, and by ex-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whom he soundly defeated in the November general election, for causing that budget gap.
Mamdani vowed that his administration will be up front with New Yorkers about budget issues that have been “hidden from them for far too long.”
City Comptroller Mark Levine earlier this month said the new mayor faces a budget shortfall that is projected to total $12.6 billion over the next two fiscal years.
That comprises a $2.2 billion projected deficit on the city’s nearly $116 billion budget for fiscal 2026, which ends on June 30, and a $10.4 billion gap in fiscal 2027.
See the video below:
BREAKING: Mayor Zohran Mamdani Says New York City is Facing a “Fiscal Crisis at the Scale of the Great Recession”
“That means looking inward into savings and efficiencies. That also means raising taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers and the most profitable corporations.” pic.twitter.com/ck89QhFFwL
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) January 28, 2026
This is what the people of New York City voted for. They are about to find out what it means.
