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On his way out of the door, city Comptroller Brad Lander warns of a $10 billion budget hole next year, growing to $13 billion the next — challenges that will surely dent Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s freebie-filled socialist agenda.
Lander, of course, blames Mayor Eric Adams, when in fact the looming fiscal hole would’ve been worse if Adams hadn’t pushed back at the wild spending “adds” favored by the City Council and Lander.
And of course, much of City Hall’s extra spending these last three years was the result of housing more than 115,000 “asylum seekers” who flooded into the Big Apple — a migration that Lander, Mamdani and other lefties welcome, even as they aim to resist all ICE efforts to apprehend even the most violent criminal “refugees.”
Nor does Lander recommend spending cuts even now, despite likely coming cuts in federal aid.
Instead, he urges pure sleight-of-hand — a pack of gimmicks that don’t really reduce the bottom line — and raising taxes on corporations and higher-income New Yorkers.
Uh-oh: We thought those hikes were how Mamdani would fund his new spending, not how he’d cover existing bills.
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Maybe Mamdani will be lucky enough that Lander’s replacement doesn’t routinely settle as many outrageously high legal claims; that could save a billion or so.
By the way, Lander likely understates the problem: State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s October report on city finances projected an even more dire $17.1 billion budget gap for Mamdani’s first three fiscal years.
DiNapoli advises City Hall to confront the looming mess with “realistic revenue and spending projections” and by building up higher “contingencies or reserves”: Does he think the voters just elected a Republican?
We don’t remotely expect the new mayor to transform into that kind of fiscal hawk, so we’re nervously wondering what schemes he’ll come up with to pull tens of billions out of thin air.