New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is confirming that he is precisely the sort of figure many critics warned he would be: An in-over-his-head communist with deep ties to terrorism sympathizers and antisemites — one of whom, it appears, is his spouse. While his base loves and shares his radicalism, many NYC voters were seduced by his “affordability” talk, sold with an ear-to-ear grin. Reality is now setting in.
Last month, Mamdani addressed a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall, warning that major tax increases will be necessary to try to close the gap. His top preference, he insisted, is a new “wealth tax,” which even many Democrats acknowledge would chase more wealth out of the city, as it has everywhere it’s been tried. Such counter-productive schemes have been such a failure that many European adopters were forced into retreat and repeal. California is currently bleeding companies and high-dollar taxpayers due to the threat of a looming, confiscatory wealth tax. If Mamdani doesn’t get his ruinous way on that front, however, he said major property tax increases will need to smack New Yorkers.
“The suggested 9.5 percent increase would affect more than three million single-family homes, co-ops and condos and over 100,000 commercial buildings,” the New York Times reported in February, quoting Mamdani as admitting that this outcome would amount to an increased “tax on working- and middle-class” earners. Leftists campaign on soaking “the rich,” which might poll well ahead of an election — but their plans never work, their math doesn’t add up, and many voters end up discovering, often to their horror, that “rich” has been redefined to include, well, themselves. The latest sleight of hand involves Mamdani’s estate tax plan. Bloomberg reports that the mayor is now proposing “to raise New York’s estate tax to 50 percent and have it kick in at $750,000, instead of more than $7 million.” That is a massively lowered threshold for the death tax to kick in (far, far lower than any reasonable definition of “rich”), with a huge tax increase on top of it. The New York Post’s summary:
“The socialist mayor wants to drastically slash the estate tax exemption threshold from the $7 million limit to just $750,000, a drop of more than 90%, according to a memo City Hall recently circulated to Albany lawmakers.… In addition to dropping the estate tax exemption — to what would be the lowest in the US — Mamdani is also pitching increasing the top rate to a whopping 50%, from the current 16%, in what he said would raise $4 billion combined … City Council Member Phil Wong (D-Queens) said lowering the exemption threshold would ‘hit a lot closer to home than people realize.’ ‘With property values where they are today, families could be forced to sell the very homes they hoped to pass on to their children,’ he said. ‘Government cannot keep piling on taxes that punish middle-class homeowners.’ (Emphasis added.)
“That modest one-bedroom apartment you wanted to leave your family to help them get on the property ladder? The mayor will take half of it,” writes the Washington Post’s James Hohmann, underscoring how hard this could hit decidedly non-wealthy city taxpayers. Meanwhile, with Big Apple finances deep in the red, and the mayor proposing painful tax hikes, Mamdani has found billions for a homeless hotel gambit. The Washington Post relays that the Mamdani “administration has inked a new nearly $1.9 billion contract with the city’s hotel industry to provide emergency shelter to homeless families over the next three years.” Critics say this is a staggered per-person expenditure, awarded through an ethically dubious no-bid contract. Detractors also note that with hotel prices already very high for tourists, “taking thousands of rooms offline doesn’t help make the tourist-reliant metropolis more affordable.” Others point out that when leftists in San Francisco implemented a similar policy, it predictably resulted in multimillion-dollar taxpayer-funded legal settlements paid out to hotels following lawsuits over destroyed rooms. This policy “increased homelessness and cost the city additional tens of millions in damages, on top of the lost tax revenue and hotels,” one observed. Mamdani has embraced this failure, naturally.
Finally, after a jihadist bombing attack targeted peaceful protesters gathered outside the mayor’s residence earlier this month, Mamdani launched an elaborate criticism… of the targeted victims. He called them “vile” merchants of “bigotry,” later adding that violence is unacceptable. Many in the “news” media took it a step further, falsely framing the firebombing as aimed at Mamdani, rather than the anti-Mamdani protesters. One week after those Islamists shouted “Allahu Akbar” while attempting mass murder, another group of Islamists gathered in New York City to loudly express their support for American-killing terrorist organizations abroad. “We Support Hezbollah here, we support Hamas here,” they chanted proudly and openly, while shrieking anti-American slogans.
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Both Hamas and Hezbollah are designated terrorist organizations that have killed many Americans. No word on whether Mamdani thinks the pro-terrorist hate mobs rallying in his city are “vile” or “bigoted.” His Ramadan appearances and dinner invitees may offer insight into his not-so-secret thoughts on the matter.
New Yorkers voted for all of this. They’re getting what they asked for, nice and hard. Major congratulations on all the “progress.”