‘Tax the rich’: Zohran Mamdani takes on Kathy Hochul a day after $260 billion New York budget unveiling
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "‘Tax the rich’: Zohran Mamdani takes on Kathy Hochul a day after $260 billion New York budget unveiling")
Zohran Mamdani Photograph: (X)
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani clashed with Governor Kathy Hochul after she released a tax-hike-free state budget. He says the city’s richest residents and corporations must pay more to plug a $12.6 billion deficit, blaming former mayor Eric Adams for it.
Zohran Mamdani insists that his administration will tax the rich, as promised. Just three weeks into the job, the New York mayor is already picking a fight with Albany. On Wednesday (Jan 21), he brushed aside Governor Kathy Hochul's newly released state budget, which came without any raise in income taxes, and said that it was time for NYC's "wealthiest residents to pay their fair share"
"Tax the rich"
"Our administration is preparing to make the case that it is the time for New York's most profitable corporations and wealthiest residents to pay their fair share," Mamdani told reporters at the Whitney Museum in Manhattan.
This statement comes just a day after Hochul rolled out a $260 billion budget for New York, one of the largest in the state's history, as she heads into a tough election year with pressure coming from all sides.
Not enough for City Hall
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Hochul's plan includes a major expansion of universal pre k, something Mamdani has long backed. Still, it was not enough to soften his stance. The mayor argued that New York City sends far more money to Albany than it gets back.
The city, he said, generates 54.5 per cent of the state's tax revenue but receives only 40.5 per cent in return. Any tax hike for the city would need approval from the state legislature.
"What we are looking to do is to tackle long-standing fiscal issues that both have to do with the need for more revenue from the highest earners, but also the relationship between City Hall and Albany, " Mamdani said, pointing to both the need for more revenue from top earners.
Hochul, for her part, has not ruled out tax hikes forever. But her budget director, Blake Washington, made her position clear this week. "She thinks it’s a last resort to raise taxes on anybody at any time," he said.
A deficit and a target
Mamdani inherited a problem. A $12.6 billion budget deficit is projected over the next two fiscal years, reports the New York Post. On Wednesday, he pinned the deficit's blame squarely on his predecessor, former Mayor Eric Adams. However, he insisted that the state was on steady ground.
"I think that it’s actually the governor’s fiscal stewardship, I think it’s also the strength of our city’s tax base, that the state is on firm financial footing," he said. "The issue, however, is that the city is not, and that is a result, a direct result of Eric Adams’s gross fiscal mismanagement," he added.
Political pressure on Hochul
The standoff puts Hochul in a bind. She is already facing a primary challenge from her lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, who is running to her left. Republicans in the suburbs, including Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman, are using Mamdani's rhetoric to paint her as captive to the party’s liberal wing.
Despite Mamdani's push, city finances are not collapsing. Comptroller Mark Levine reported that tax revenue rose 7 per cent in the last fiscal year.
"This wasn't caused by a bad economy," he said. "It’s the result of budgeting decisions from the previous administration that we must now deal with."
