A $12 billion alarm for Mayor Mamdani

The recent news that New York City is facing a $12 billion budget deficit is a dose of reality for the young Mamdani administration, which seems to think money grows on trees.

But this comes as no surprise to those of us who have been sounding the alarm about the “drunken sailor” spending so common in this city and state. Unfortunately, it turns out that common sense isn’t so common in a city run by socialists who believe the answer to every problem is to spend more money, even if the problem was created by their own misguided policies.

As a result of this perpetual pause and then spend-to-fix ideology, the city budget has grown from $77 billion to the current $112.4 billion since 2014. Our city government continues to create more wasteful programs while neglecting basic city services that New Yorkers expect when paying taxes like public safety and trash pickup – which is more evident than ever. The fact is that Mayor Mamdani’s “heat of collectivism” stinks as bad as the trash piling up in our streets.

New York City, with a population of 8.4 million, an area of ​​304 square miles and 6,300 miles of streets and highways, has a budget that is only $5 billion less than that of the state of Florida with its population of 23.3 million, land area of ​​53,625 square miles and state highway system of more than 122,000 miles. It is clear that something is seriously wrong with the way our city has been run under one-party Democratic rule. It’s no wonder so many former New York taxpayers now live in Florida, tax-free.

It’s time to end reckless giveaways and focus on the fiduciary responsibility of New York taxpayers.

This fiduciary responsibility has been massively rejected by the de Blasio administration with failed programs like his wife’s ThriveNYC mental health initiative and the Renewal school program that together swallowed up nearly $1.8 billion in tax dollars. Not to mention the $7 billion in “emergency” contracts during the pandemic, including $224 million in medical equipment, later sold for a whopping $500,000.

The Adams administration was no better, wasting $432 million on emergency contracts with DocGo, and more than $7 billion to house illegal immigrants, including gang members, in luxury hotels for $370 per room per day.

What’s worse is how many crimes we’ve bought with this money. A Freedom of Information Act request I made last year showed that there were around 4,000 criminal migrants in these shelters who were arrested for 16,000 crimes!

Only in a poorly managed city like ours would citizens be forced to foot the bill to house, feed, and provide medical care (among other goodies) to those who create chaos and wreak havoc. Fortunately, President Trump’s securing of the southern border and enforcement of our immigration laws has led to the emptying of these shelters and a drop in crime in almost every category.

However, whether it is cronyism within the New York Department of Education, which spends more per student than any other municipality in the country, or the runaway costs of the nonprofits that run the homeless industrial complex where a month’s stay is more than a middle-class family’s mortgage, taxpayers come last.

With a $12 billion deficit, there is no room for the mayor’s socialist programs. Abandoning Marxism and the misguided policies he touted during his campaign and realizing that New York will only thrive with safe streets, less regulation, and respect for taxpayers may sound like wishful thinking, but it is the only way our city will survive four years of Mamdani.

Malliotakis represents Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn in Congress and serves on the House Ways and Means Committee and the Joint Economic Committee.