They got bailed out by the state, along with delayed pensions, and shifting financial burdens from the city to the state that had been previously moved under Governor Cuomo.
I love how the wing of the party that expected us to accept that “starting the process of rescheduling cannabis” is the same thing as “rescheduling cannabis” suddenly has all these ideas about how “balancing the budget” isn’t “balancing the budget.”
The largest share — about $2.3 billion over two years — is expected to come from the city’s delaying certain pension payments, a change that requires state approval and buy-in from municipal unions.
…
To balance this year’s budget, Mr. Mamdani is proposing to delay payments into New York City’s pension funds.
The city has five pension funds representing teachers, police officers, firefighters and other unionized municipal workers. The returns, which are invested, total about $300 billion.
The mayor’s plan, which would save $2.3 billion through the end of the upcoming fiscal year, would involve restructuring the city’s contributions to the funds following an overhaul instituted in 2013 by Bill de Blasio, then the mayor of New York City, and Andrew M. Cuomo, then the governor. At that time, the mayor changed the city’s pension payment obligations following a drop in the assumed rate of return, to 7 percent from 8 percent.
(and fucking, of course: “Police officers’ pensions would be unaffected by the proposed change, as their union, the Police Benevolent Association, is opposed to the plan.”)
https://archive.ph/XARnw (NY Times)
So, it sounds like the biggest contribution to the balanced budget is to push problems down the road and delay funding pensions. To a certain extent I get it. He was left with a time bomb that was about to go off, and if he can balance the budget (even if it’s by delaying pension payments) he can defuse that time bomb and get some breathing room. I would hope that the unions accept the pension delay because I think having him as mayor is going to pay off for them in the long term.
It’s clear that this budget isn’t really balanced, at least not long term. It sounds like he’s still going to have to make some hard decisions, either cutting benefits or raising revenues. It sounds like one item that needs addressing is the cost per student in NYC which is twice as high as other places. That’s going to involve making some hard decisions and taking on some powerful special interests.
And of course, if he can actually fix NYC’s biggest problem (the NYPD) he’ll go a long way to solving the other probems.
No one gets elected for having a well reasoned plan to actually bring down a budget deficit these days in the long term. The voter can’t or won’t accept that fixing something that took years to create will take years to get out of. And admitting that is electoral suicide.
All debt is “kicking the can down the road” in some way, having a plan for it seems better than not though.
Except with most debt you’re making incremental payments toward it. This is skipping one of your scheduled payments and then claiming that your budget is balanced.
That’s the biggest individual contribution, but it was only about 20% of the deficit. The other 80% was actually solved, as far as I can tell.
A huge chunk of it was state spending, or the state agreeing not to force the city to meet state mandates:
Earlier this year, Ms. Hochul committed $1.5 billion in state aid for a host of municipal services. The state budget, which has not yet been finalized, is also expected to include a host of policy changes and revenue increases that will funnel another $4 billion to the city over the next two years.
…
The city is expected to save another $1 billion over two years from several changes, including the state’s expected agreement to delay a class-size mandate in public schools (despite Mr. Mamdani’s support for the mandate as a candidate); more school aid from the state; and the assumption by the state of a larger share of death benefits for families of police officers, firefighters and emergency medical workers.
That’s happening because “Ms. Hochul, … is facing re-election this year, [and] needs Mr. Mamdani’s help in turning out Democratic voters in New York City.” After she’s securely in office for another 4 year term, who knows how willing she’ll be to do those same deals.
If Mandami remains popular, maybe he can keep the governor on his side. It would be ideal if they solved some of these problems as a team instead of working against each-other. I’m hopeful. Right now people seem to be in a very anti-status-quo mood. Mandami is showing how Democratic Socialism is a different way of doing things from the status quo. If he appears to be succeeding, more people will want to work with him. If more people can work with him, he can maybe take on some of the really big challenges that require a lot of people working together. At that point, it’s not just a budget that appears to be balanced if you shift the pension burdens into the future. It may actually be a budget that will really work in the long term.
That’s happening because “Ms. Hochul, … is facing re-election this year, [and] needs Mr. Mamdani’s help in turning out Democratic voters in New York City.” After she’s securely in office for another 4 year term, who knows how willing she’ll be to do those same deals.
If he delivers NYC, then he owns her, and she’ll have to come through with the favors.
Or what? There’s no election for years.
Only if she thinks he’ll still be in power next time she faces election.
She’ll be looking for some kind of job in government, and she’s not going to want to be the guy that was pushing back against Mamdani’s success, especially after his successes start to look like future Democratic policies.
Remember how none of those Dem pricks backed him for mayor, even against a door like Sliwa? Then when he gets elected, and has his Inauguration, they all show up to that party, and pretended like they were behind him all along?
He’s starting to look like the future of the Democrat Party, and she better get on board, or get left behind. She knows what’s up, she’ll be riding his coattails.
Hochul and dnc immediately started smearing him on msms, and then only stopped because the amount of attention he was getting from potential voters, to vote against the DINOs, she isnt his friend.
Healing has to start somewhere, though. Getting good news will attract more investments and will make the city more rich eventually.
And I hope that other sacrificed subsystems will follow the uptrend as well.
get fucked, centrists
gasp
Where’s your tolerance?! I thought progressives were nice!
no, i’m an angry progressive. think we should bring back the bull moose party and find a socialist that can gish gallop the way Trump does
Tolerance doesn’t mean someone can’t be mean to you. It means they give you the same rights they expect you to give them.
This includes the right to say “get fucked” to others and to disassociate from people that are likely to say “get fucked” to you.
Listen sweaty, Martin Luther King didn’t create the underground railroad by telling people to get fucked, okay? He was all about nonviolence AKA, ya know being nice to people?? Preeeettttyyy suuuure I know what I’m talking about here.
spoiler
Please, dear readers, don’t make me submit to the
/sdegradation, I’ll do it like this instead lolAnyone who thinks you’re being earnest here is beyond hope lol
Some of us are just doing all we can to avoid spilling blood.
You can’t win office without Independent votes.
Anyone that you want to elect must get Independent votes, they are 40% of the voters (Ds & Rs 30% each).
When I need help, I don’t tell the potential aid to fuck off, but what do I know? Let’s see how “fuck off” inspires the electorate.
This assumes independents are centrists…
This type of governing has been possible the whole time which is the worst part. Keep up the good work Mamdani and his team.
Leftist critique (not attempting to shit on Mamdani, just food for thought):
“Balancing the budget” on public finances is right wing propaganda. The public sector literally creates an indefinitely big amount of dollars, and fighting for “balancing the budget” implies restricting expenditure arbitrarily. This expenditure could fund welfare policy, improved social services, public housing, infrastructure…
The public sector isn’t (or rather shouldn’t be in practice) restricted by funding constraints, and any attempt to say otherwise is neoliberal propaganda designed to justify budget cuts to welfare.
Local government isn’t a currency issuer though. Sure a city can issue bonds but that’s real debt, just like household debt.
Currency issuing governments, well yeah that’s another story.
Notice how I didn’t say local government. I specifically said not to criticise Mamdani because it’s not his fault, but he could and should be doing MMT propaganda explaining these concepts and showing how absurd it is that we make the political decision of giving this arbitrary limit to public spending at the local level.
I more or less agree with your point. But it’s hardly fair to make a comment in a thread about a specific topic then get upset if people discuss it in the context of that topic.
I’m not upset, I’m just bringing up the topic of how leftist politicians shouldn’t pride themselves on budget balancing because it’s harmful to welfare in the long run. I’m aware I’m the one bringing up the topic.
Runaway inflation is also harmful to welfare in the long run.
Agreed, but inflation doesn’t correlate with currency issuing. The vast majority of inflation in developed nations comes from supply shocks and from private companies using their market power to raise prices unilaterally. You’re living through this today, prices are rising dramatically because of energy supply shock consequence of the US attacks on Iran. Even Trump admits to this, yesterday himself he said he doesn’t care how this war affects the finances of Americans.
That’s true in this case, but we have to look at the long term. Even now, the US pays about $1 trillion per year just on interest on the debt. That is a huge chunk of the budget going towards something completely unproductive. As the debt increases, the share of interest payments will go higher unless interest rates are reduced but that will only kick the can down the road if the budget is not fixed to stimulate more productive activity.
As we continue down this road, there will come a time when there is little to no confidence that the US can pay back its debt and the US would be unable to sell its debt unless they significantly increase interest rates to entice investors. When that time comes, the US will have to print an even greater amount of money just to keep up with payments because so much of the budget is going towards unproductive activity that does not generate meaningful additional revenue. With confidence reducing in the US’s ability to pay back debts, that also means reduced confidence in the US dollar itself, making it worth less.
You’re right that the amount of US dollars issued is not enough to cause inflation on its own, but in this case it is a symptom of the problem of bad allocation.
The public sector should be constrainted by funding and that funding should be remediated via taxes.
Money isn’t supposed to be infinate. The system as is requires uncapped spending.
How do you account for growth in the real economy, then? Spain invaded and obliterated the cultures of a whole continent in part because they didn’t have enough silver to match their accounting books.
I get that we have a problem with venture capital and defense contractors having access to the federal money spigot, but putting an arbitrary cap on the monetary supply will just impose a new set of problems.
Unlike gold and silver our token based monetary system allows you to split money into increasingly small units.
So as the economy improves the currency would deflate. That’s becomes an entire separate discussion.
The public sector should be constrainted by funding
No, it shouldn’t. Governments can literally create any amounts of money. At times, the correct economic policy is to have more deficit, at times the correct economic policy is to have less deficit, and being arbitrarily bounded by artificial balance budgets (which don’t apply to entities capable of issuing their own currency) implies unnecessary suffering for many.
You didn’t argue anything from knowledge, you just proudly stated your uneducated opinion on the topic.
Money isn’t supposed to be infinate. The system as is requires uncapped spending
This doesn’t even make sense, you’re contradicting yourself, finite money and uncapped spending are literally impossible to have together. Are you an AI?
Just make more money! Who would have thought of that? Your educated opinion is quite impressive.
p.s. the US government doesn’t issue their own currency, that’s the Fed.
Just make more money! Who would have thought of that?
Modern Monetary Theory economists. Randall Wray, Alberto Garzón, Stephanie Kelton. John Maynard Keynes… Apparently it’s such a radical thought that fools like you without economic training whatsoever can’t even conceive it, and it takes scholars with decades of study of macroeconomics to realize that the limits to public spending shouldn’t be arbitrary and should be dictated by macroeconomic needs and policy
The ability to create infinate money IS the problem. Also I said “The system as is” there is no contradiction in my statement.
It shouldn’t be that way.
I did argue from knowledge I know exactly that idea your stating. It’s a artifact of our current debt = new money system.
Also why are you so aggressive? Are you ok???
The ability to create infinate money IS the problem
Again, by which metric? I’ve already explained to you how inflation does not correlate to currency creation empirically, what problem is the ability to create infinite currency?
It’s a artifact of our current debt = new money system.
I agree that debt is absurd, they should just create the currency outright, it’s pointless creating debt in a currency you denominate yourself
You haven’t said anything empirically you’ve just stated your case as fact ( just as I have but at least I’m not pretending to have presented it hard cold logic instead )
Anyway, the problem is being able to make the money. Your right at some point having to much money is good and sometimes having too much money is bad if your trying to manually control the economy . But doing that at all can be bad. It gives a few an immense power over the many. It’s best to limit it entirely rather then leave anyone’s thumbs on the scale.
Youre entirely right that it will have adverse consequences at times, but that’s kinda the point. You make a healthy economy by having healthy economic trade.
Here you have a wonderful source proving empirically the total lack of correlation between monetary aggregate increases and inflationary episodes. There is no contesting empiricism.
Your right at some point having to much money is good and sometimes having too much money is bad if your trying to manually control the economy
Yes, why wouldn’t you want to control the economy to make it better?
It’s best to limit it entirely rather then leave anyone’s thumbs on the scale
So we refer to my initial comment: “anyone telling you otherwise is just spewing neoliberal propaganda”.
You make a healthy economy by having healthy economic trade
No, you make a healthy economy by ensuring everyone has access to welfare, that’s what defines a healthy economy. The idea of economics should not be to maximize GDP but to maximize well-being of people as democratically decided by themselves.
Federal government deficit spending works because interest is often higher than return on federal bonds, so it’s literally cheaper for the government to go into debt and pay over a long period than to pay cash.
Local government can’t do that, but they do have other tools. The one I deal with the most often is Public Improvement Districts where we’ll cut a deal to waive municipal property tax or the city’s sales tax for like 20 years on a big development in return for the developers building the public infrastructure required to support that development, then transferring it to the City. For really big projects, we may even redirect the tax to the developer, which we actually kinda prefer when that 20-year clock times out and you don’t have business owners and residents suddenly getting new taxes they aren’t used to and freaking ALL the way out.
It’s a deal for the developer because they need that infrastructure anyway, and the only “extra” cost to them is oversizing stuff like wastewater lines beyond what they need, and it’s a deal for the city because those road, water, sidewalk, and wastewater extensions they install with the project end up serving more than just that development.
Federal government deficit spending works because interest is often higher than return on federal bonds
Federal government deficit spending works because the state holds the monopoly on violence and if you don’t pay taxes denominated in the state’s currency you go to jail, so everyone needs such currency. When European colonists wanted to implement their currency in their colonies in Africa, the first thing they did was imposing taxation on said currency.
Local government can’t do that
Because we politically decide not to allow it, but that’s exactly what I’m arguing against.
That’s how taxation works, but it doesn’t solve government finance by itself.
The US government has always paid interest on the debt. It’s never missed a payment. That makes it a very stable investment, and until recently it was considered the most stable, predictable investment that could be made.
That also means the US could have stupidly-low interest on its debts. And because the investment is so safe, it also creates a bottom for interest rates. No other investment is safer, so any time the fed rate goes up, all other loan rates go up as well - otherwise investors would just put their money in the US instead of on a home or business loan.
That and other factors result in inflation generally being higher than the interest on loans made to the US, which results in a situation where paying cash up front is actually more expensive than getting a loan and paying with future tax revenue, because future tax revenue grows with inflation that outpaces the interest on the loan.
The US government has always paid interest on the debt. It’s never missed a payment
Hard to miss a payment when you literally can just create the currency that the payment is agreed on…
The following paragraph is a good description of state bond interest rates as a policy mechanism to control general interest rates in the society (governments also decide not just the minimum but the maximum interest rate through fiscal policy to banks in terms I myself am not very familiar with, but it’s a well-known fact and it’s how governments in Europe and the US decided to put higher but capped interest rates during the 2022-2023 inflation episode, and lower it after).
However you then make a non-sequitur to bring up inflation which hadn’t appeared in the conversation until that point. What you describe is actually backwards: central banks in the west (wrongly) believe that they can fix supply-shock inflation by raising interest rates which would supposedly cool down economic activity by reducing loans and therefore economic activity (most of inflation in developed countries is explained by shocks in supply, as we are literally seeing today with the Iran war, so this doesn’t work unsurprisingly). How is it that after living the energy crisis-caused inflationary episode of 2022-2023 and the current energy-caused inflationary episode of the Iran war, you still defend that inflation comes from monetary policy?
Federal government deficit spending works because the state holds the monopoly on violence and if you don’t pay taxes denominated in the state’s currency you go to jail, so everyone needs such currency.
That a related, but separate issue. That’s how taxes work at all, whether the government is doing deficit spending, the budget is in balance, or there is a budget surplus.
But it is taxation that gives value to currency in developed countries. If it was purely economic, people would indistinctly pay with $USD in the EU and with Euros in the USA.
While the government can technically print money, it then has to tax people more to prevent inflation, so this “money doesn’t matter” “let’s build a utopia out of hopes and dreams” stuff is nonsense. I cannot take seriously claims that a party cares about people or causes if that party cannot be bothered to consider the actual logistics of solving problems. That’s just tribalism.
The government should absolutely drive economic activity by spending money to solve problems, and it does have a small advantage since very low inflation is desirable, but for the most part that money must come from carefully spent taxes – not taxes thrown blindly at corporations or pocketed by corrupt politicians.
I think you’ve read a lot into that person’s comment that wasn’t actually in the comment. What they said wasn’t that the government should spend with abandon; they said it shouldn’t be arbitrarily limited. And insisting on zero deficit spending at all times is indeed arbitrary.
If, for instance, they issue bonds in order to pay for better public education, that has a significant positive effect on the growth of the local economy a few years in the future, which they can reasonably expect to result in increased tax revenue at that time, and indeed a larger increase than what they’re spending in the present. Borrowing money to spend in this way isn’t fiscally irresponsible; quite the opposite. It pays for itself over a slightly longer time horizon and improves the city.
There are often similar effects with programs to support low-income residents, because support to these residents has a higher “velocity” than aid for higher-income residents. Infrastructure spending is also frequently justifiable.
Conversely, giving tax cuts to AI datacenters doesn’t become responsible stewardship if you offset the cost by increasing payroll taxes.
Budgeting for a government is really complicated, and oversimplifying that, whether it’s by saying “we need zero deficit!” or by saying “we have infinite money!” is gonna lead to bad decisions. But “we have infinite money” being false doesn’t make “we need zero deficit” true. Both are oversimplifications, and the right has been using the latter as a propaganda bludgeon for at least 40 years now.
While the government can technically print money, it then has to tax people more to prevent inflation
No, it doesn’t, this is a well-repeated lie from neoliberalism, but there is no experimental correlation between government spending (or debt) and inflation. It’s specially funny how we’re literally living through a severe inflationary period today with energy prices as consequence of the Iran war, and people keep blaming inflation on currency issuing. I repeat: there is no experimental data proving a correlation between currency issuing and inflation, inflation correlates primarily with supply shocks, and you’ve lived through this over the past 5 years twice.
This doesn’t mean that governments should create infinite money, just that the spending limit shouldn’t be dictated by balances when it comes to public institutions.
“money doesn’t matter” “let’s build a utopia out of hopes and dreams”
Huh? I explicitly said money does matter, I’m discussing monetary policy, not disregarding it. Also, utopia? What part of “issuing more currency” sounds utopian to you? Governments literally do this all the time… when it comes to funding wars, unfortunately. I’m yet to see a neoliberal economist complain about extra funding in EU or US for weapons over the past years in the grounds of inflation. Almost as if it wasn’t real, and it was just bullshit neoliberal dogma designed to keep welfare down.
not taxes thrown blindly at corporations or pocketed by corrupt politicians
I’m literally a communist, you don’t have to convince me of struggle against private companies and corrupt politicians.
This seems to be an MMT critique rather than a leftist one.
MMT is simply saying “public expenditure isn’t bounded by arbitrary balances”. I made it leftist when I argued for welfare, social housing and infrastructure.
Who would have thought taxing the rich improves everyone’s lives?
Nah, they just got lucky. We absolutely cannot keep trying this, because it’s doomed to fail. Capitalism is the only system that works.
This isn’t from taxing the rich, this is from deferring payments to city pension funds, delaying class size reductions and other schemes, and taking a huge wad of cash from state aid. And $1.2bn gained because NYC had fewer employees than expected this year. So it’s a one-time deal rather than a sustainable policy.
If we tax the rich they will all move away to other countries then we will be left here with just the people who do all the work. We will never survive
No need to seize the means of production if they simply abandon it…
I say let’s try it elsewhere, just to prove those despicable commies it was absolutely a fluke.
This is capitalism though, like, fully and throughout.
But he did it by not adding more money to your pension programs. The tax the rich part only made about 5% on the gap
You mean city employee pensions. That is roughly 750,000 people. Id rather the pension lose city contributions than multiple programs that effect the average NYC tax payer.
Yes i agree, fuck those city workers. They don’t need a retirement.
Your sarcasm is too vapid. You need more wit. The employee is still contributing. The pensions are 84% funded which is well above the avg pension program. And the city will continue contribution after correcting the sabotage Adams caused.
It’s kind of amazing how many people don’t understand that requiring excessive pension liquidity is a conservative strategy to kill tha viability of pensions. Relentless conservative media has completely broken us.
Conservatives will tell you that tax breaks for the rich pay for themselves through growth, but government pension funds can’t be invested in infrastructure for the same reason.
you’re right, now I understand that firing about a hundred thousand people and cutting all city services would have been better.
Or you can kick the can down the road and hope you have enough money later, but don’t worry that is a problem our kids will pay for.
Capitalism and taxing the rich are not opposing each other.
The problem with a statement like this is it is technically, academically true. However, in practice, it may as well be carved in stone. A system where fewer and fewer people accumulate more wealth and power is going to eventually put them above taxes, above the laws of nations 99/100. In Capitalism 2.1 that is a whispered goal.
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Furiously taking notes
Leftist unity good as long as you join meLeftist… Unity… Bad… Actually.
Think I got it.
ooo, that rhymes with tuba. that’s like half a song right there. it’ll be so bad i can’t not write it
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I cant believe an organization exists to improve lives based on decades of research, theory, and global practice in a system propped up by propaganda. God forbid we have democracy in the workplace. Workers are too stupid to own the means of production. Its better when those with the most capital can much more easily accumate more. That benefits everyone because it puts the brightest (ie wealthiest) people in charge, driven solely by their altruism. Capitalism has proven to be the best system ever developed.
I’m a communist dumbass. Do you think I made that comment, thinking it’s a bad thing???
The wonders of taxing the rich.
TBF, from the analysis someone else posted, taxing the rich only brought in, like, 550 mil. Which isn’t nothing, but it’s not like “tax the rich” saved the city - they did a lot of other stuff.
That is just one small potential tax on the rich. This was only taxing second homes over 5 million (very specific). He’s also proposed a 51% increase in city individual income tax for earners over 1m, which would net 4b annually. Could increase corporate income tax, which he also proposed. That would bring in another 1.75b. Sounds like millionaires got off easy.
I know what he said and what he’s planning.
Doesn’t change the fact that so far the tax on the rich has had a minimal impact on the city’s budget, contrary to what the OC suggested.
Although true, I think that undersells the effect of even this minor tax on the rich. Every dollar out of a rich person pocket is a dollar out of asset investments portfolios and another dollar in the local economy. Until housing isn’t a viable investment vehicle, as an example, that’s another dollar not going to increasing the cost of housing. Housing getting cheaper means cost of living goes down not just for the worker but for the stores that sell you your food and your stuff, which has a knock on effect of making cost of living even cheaper.
Taxing the rich, even a small additional percentage, isn’t just about raising more money it’s about redistributing it from the people who use it in the worst ways possible (corrupting systems, amassing power, buying the world) to the people who use it in the best way possible (paying for food, housing, education, healthcare, hobbies, art, and their communities).
We should tax multi-millionaires out of existence, but any additional tax against the systemic problem of wealth inequality is a win in my book.
Every dollar out of a rich person pocket is a dollar out of asset investments portfolios and another dollar in the local economy
I agree, but…
I think that undersells the effect of even this minor tax on the rich
I think that saying “they zeroed their 12 bil deficit thanks to the wonders of taxing the rich” is overselling what they actually did to the extreme. They got 1/24th of the needed money from pied-à-terre tax. The true “wonder” was the 7 or 8 billion they got from the state.
yeah because he wanted to seem reasonable in a insane country. in a normal world you would to tax them out of existence and pay for the deficit and more.
Oh, 100%! I’m just saying that people can’t say “the wonders of taxing the rich” like that, because that brought in 1/24th of the needed money. The true wonder was the money the state gave them (7 bil, IIRC).
But I’m truly hopeful he won’t stop here and will work on actually taxing the rich properly.
yeah. but I meant to say it does show the wonders of taxing the rich, even if this is not particularly. if this tiny amount of tax alone closed like 5% of this insane deficit, that’s still proof that actually taxing them what they deserve will do wonders.
I agree with both of you and I’ll add that the negative publicity of rich folk gnashing their teeth about something as out of touch to working Americans as taxing a 5m+ second home is a good first step on popularizing and eventually executing the rest of his tax plan.
And Dems fought him at every turn.
and repubs. only the proplr sided with him and that was enough
prowlr to the proplr!
It’s amazing what can happen when the establishment fails to block candidates who actually want to fix things.
wao
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In a couple months? Would be curious to see how, anyone have a ELI5 sheet of the changes made?
They taxed rich people and kept congestion pricing pretty much.
A big slug of money from the state was the real budget closer.
Right. In exchange for taxing second homes in NYC
“The poor get all the breaks! It isn’t fair!”
Right, taxing second homes worth $5 million or more. Are we supposed to feel sorry about rich people who can afford a SECOND home that’s over $5 million, when they are asked to pay a tiny bit extra?
Those wealthy parasites would let everybody in NYC literally starve to death before they would pay an extra nickel. Fuck anyone who believes that, we should confiscate EVERYTHING from them, and throw them in prison.
Gift article from the NY times explaining.
But influx from the state, taxes on second homes, deferred payments to pension programs, and a host of compromises. He in no way raised $12Bn in new revenue through taxes to cover the deficit.
They also got rid of state financial obligations that Cuomo had stuck on the city, and cleaned up corruption from past administrations. Those were significant savings, too.
The point is that governments can be substantially improved with even a little actual reform and not duplicitous reform like DOGE. We can have change, it just takes voting in responsible, ethical government managers, not carnival barkers.
DOGE wasn’t “reform,” it was sabotage
That’s what they are saying. It was duplicitous. It presented itself as reform but was not.
indubitably
Which would be why they called it duplicitous
Listen all of y’all it’s a sab-a-DOGE!
It was nothing less than piracy. Security at the first agency the entered should have gunned down those unsanctioned pirates in the lobby. Everything would have unfolded much differently after that.
deferred payments to pension programs
Oof, not too sure about this one…
Deferred payments usually costs more in the end.
Most of the $12 billion was a bailout from the state according to the video.
How is it a ‘bail out’ when NYC is the engine of the entire state and receives far less money per capita than other parts of the state do?
All I meant was that NYC didnt close the gap just by increasing revenue and decreasing expenses on their own. I intended no shade.
Oh I didn’t take it as shade <3
The article linked above seems to roughly agree:
- $6.5B state aid + school funding / life insurance payout shifts to state responsibility
- $2.8B from the city via delayed pensions + taxes on second homes valued >$5M
Earlier this year, Ms. Hochul committed $1.5 billion in state aid for a host of municipal services. The state budget, which has not yet been finalized, is also expected to include a host of policy changes and revenue increases that will funnel another $4 billion to the city over the next two years.
The largest share — about $2.3 billion over two years — is expected to come from the city’s delaying certain pension payments, a change that requires state approval and buy-in from municipal unions.
The mayor and governor also expect another half-billion dollars to flow from the new tax surcharge on second homes worth more than $5 million that Ms. Hochul recently announced. But the city comptroller recently argued that number might be overly optimistic, and New York City’s byzantine property valuation system means that the new tax would come with substantial implementation challenges.
The city is expected to save another $1 billion over two years from several changes, including the state’s expected agreement to delay a class-size mandate in public schools (despite Mr. Mamdani’s support for the mandate as a candidate); more school aid from the state; and the assumption by the state of a larger share of death benefits for families of police officers, firefighters and emergency medical workers.
I bet most of the pension changes are probably for NYPD members.
The NYPD pension provides retirement benefits based on years of service, salary history, and plan type, with average full-career retiree pensions exceeding $100,000 annually
Holy fuck
They get a over $100k USD pension, wtf.
Well, they need that to stop them being corrupt.
I mean, it hasn’t worked so far, but it might.
That should be a normal thing not a crazy thing.
maybe he convinced NY that they’re basically nothing without NYC?
Come on man, Buffalo is standing right there!
Buffalo has gotten pretty obnoxious ever since hand egg team win game.
Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
Oh come on. They’re more selective than that
The original video talks about it: https://xcancel.com/NYCMayor/status/2054255351340421585#m
Delaying pensions= he didn’t balance the budget.
He’s deferring it for others to balance in the future.
Impressive achievement for the mooks, but the same old shit, really.
He took a $12.4b deficit that Adams had deferred to him and deferred $2.3b, solving the rest.
As you said… NYC is $2.3 billion in the red. So, it’s not really balanced, as I said.
He’s been in office for under five months. Solving 80% of the deficit is a pretty damn good start, and if he has to kick the other 20% down the road, so be it.
And tbf, “deferring it for others to balance in the future” maybe, or maybe he does it later in this term, or gets reelected, and so he’s bought himself time to balance that bit instead of “others.”
While that comment may be right that it technically isn’t balanced, it’s certainly an improvement and there’s no guarantee he won’t be able to finish that bit at a later date himself, and so far he didn’t even raise taxes, which I’ll be honest is impressive, even if you happened to disagree with any of his other politics you can’t hate that.
Eh, better than defering the 100% that Adams had defered to him, or even more. He’s, in principleM only deferring 20%… that’s a huge decrease…
Why did you highlight the word “for”?
I know right, I wish to was a red circle! /j
Well it’s still a balanced budget.
“Balanced” by getting one time money from the state and shorting the city pension fund.
Finally balancing a messed up budget is going to require making some tough decisions, and it might get a little ugly. But you endure that pain, because it puts the city government on solid footing for next year, and for years after, until some crook gets elected, and fucks it all up again.
Rather than declare this balanced budget a smoke & mirrors failure, let’s see where it stands in 2-3 years. I suspect the city will be much improved by then.
But, No, let’s pretend doing something great, and extremely rare, like balancing the budget, is a bad thing.
Rather than declare this balanced budget a smoke & mirrors failure, let’s see where it stands in 2-3 years.
We should start by waiting to see if this budget even comes to pass. It relies on a number of disparate groups to approve various line items.
I suspect the city will be much improved by then.
I suspect it won’t. Receipts from personal income tax are expected to decrease and budget gaps dramatically widen between now and 2030.
No, let’s pretend doing something great, and extremely rare, like balancing the budget, is a bad thing.
This budget may be balanced, assuming everyone involved votes for it to happen, but the structural problems remain.
This budget may be balanced, assuming everyone involved votes for it to happen, but the structural problems remain.
Some of those structural problems were addressed in this budget balancing, and now that they’ve accomplished this objective (they’ll all sign on, nobody will dare not to), they’ll start working on the rest.
I’m predicting that he’ll succeed, and you’re predicting he’ll fail. The difference between my prediction and yours, is that mine is based on his already successful record, and his overwhelming public support, while yours relies only on your own cynical hope that he fails, with no evidence that will happen.
So far, he’s got his shit together better than ANY NYC mayor I can recall in the last 50+ years. I’m betting on THAT guy.
“Balancing the budget” means nothing without other information.
It just means they didn’t spend more than what was planned, which should be the default.
Trump could balance the budget spending billions on ICE. Just because the budget balances doesn’t make it “good”. Just means they took in the money they thought and only spent what they thought.
I’m a mayor and my town needs a new orphanage. My budget doesn’t have funds allocated towards a new orphanage in the budget. I don’t order a new orphanage to be built, kids live on street, but at least the budget is balanced. I must be a good mayor.
But, No, let’s pretend doing something great, and extremely rare, like balancing the budget, is a bad thing.
Let’s not pretend that doing something that is expected is automatically viewed as great.
Nice try at framing a successful mayorship as a failure, based on speculations that aren’t reality in this situation. Sure, if any of those things were true, it would be smoke & mirrors, but they aren’t true. He made cuts, he got the state to carry their responsibility, he raised taxes on the wealthy, got rid of stupid corrupt policies of past corrupt mayors, and managed to balance the budget without raising taxes or cutting services on the on the CITIZENS.
That’s the way a mayor is supposed to do it, but you declared the message false based on not enough information, when all the information you’re looking for is out there. Your cynical speculation is already wrong.
MAGAs are so quick to claim the Socialist is wrong, and they sound silly and ignorant every time they do.
Not knowing why this is critical, and massively positive, is a lack of imagination.
A balanced budget means minimization of your debt service. Cities can invest, they can also take on debt in various forms. There is “good” debt which services itself, but bad debt can be very expensive.
Balancing the budget means more cash flow to pay down existing debt quicker and not have to create new debt. It also means making new investments.
Maybe in 2 or 3 years you can build that orphanage, and you can do it with money your investments have earned, instead of raising taxes or taking on new long-term debt.
This could make NYC more self-sufficient and prosperous in the long run, and less reliant on outside creditors, which limits the leverage of outside parties against the city.
A balanced budget means minimization of your debt service.
If NY has a 1B dollar budget. Receives 1B in revenue and pays 1B in expensives. It has a balanced budget.
It has nothing to do with where or how the money comes in or goes.
Both NY and NY city are required to have a balanced budget legally unlike the federal government. So there would be a problem if it wasn’t balanced.
It is just a fancy way of saying that they don’t have to raise property tax to get enough revenue for expected expenses. Now if those expected expenses exceeds revenue in 2027 is another matter.
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