Mayor Mamdani’s claim yesterday that “we have to engage with honesty, transparency and directness with New Yorkers as to the fiscal health of this city that we have inherited” is pure malarkey because he wants — and has always wanted — higher taxes on the wealthy and on corporations.
He just keeps looking for new opportunities for his cherished tax hikes, which are subject to approval by the Legislature and Gov. Hochul, and which Hochul has correctly ruled out.
Now Mamdani says that if he does not get the tax hikes that he wants from Hochul and Albany he’ll punish everyone with a 9.5% increase on property taxes, which he admits will be “on the backs of middle class and working New Yorkers.”
His budget numbers aren’t to be believed. Three weeks ago, Mamdani said that the city was facing a $12 billion deficit caused by former Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (who happened to have been Mamdani’s rivals in last year’s election.)
But two weeks later, appearing before the Legislature, the deficit had almost been chopped in half, to $7 billion, which Mamdani still blamed on Adams and Cuomo. That was too thick for state Sen. John Liu, a former city comptroller, and early endorser of Mamdani, who got real and told the mayor that “I will respectfully say that the time for blaming past mayors and governors is past.”
But yesterday, Mamdani was still pointing at Adams and Cuomo. His consistency also applies to his hoped-for tax hikes.
When Mamdani began his mayoral run, on Oct. 22, 2024, he told the Daily News, “I want to be clear: This will mean raising taxes on the wealthiest, as I have advocated for since being elected,” to the Assembly in 2020.
By last April, Mamdani had focused on his twin hikes, telling The News he wanted a 2% boost on the personal income tax on households earning more than $1 million and to increase the corporate tax rate to 11.5%, up from the current 7.5%. That’s where he’s been ever since. He did say of tax increases that, “This is immensely popular when polled.”
So he has his poll-tested, class-warfare platform of taxing the rich and he’s sticking to it. He dropped his opposition to mayoral control of the public schools. He abandoned his support for increasing the CityFHEPS rental assistance program. The NYPD gang database is still in existence. Those pledges have been broken. But he won’t give up his tax hikes. And now, if doesn’t get what he wants from Hochul, who has only been helpful (including another $1.5 billion in funds on Monday), he’ll sock it to everyday New Yorkers.
Homeowners would be slammed and renters won’t escape a property tax increase, because landlords will have to raise the rent to pay City Hall. And out goes the window Mamdani’s rash promise to freeze rents in stabilized units, otherwise landlords would go bankrupt. Thankfully, the City Council and Speaker Julie Menin are aghast at the 9.5% property tax hike, so it should be a dead letter.
One thing that Mamdani should do on property taxes is push to reform the crazy quilt and unfair system. He says that a legislative reform package is coming in a few weeks. Good, we are looking forward to it. As for higher property taxes, forget it.
