Today marks the mayor's 100th day in office, and some are already talking about what he can accomplish through his second term.
That's because the mayor's ambitious agenda is already getting pared back. As Politico put it, "It's looking increasingly unlikely that Mayor Zohran Mamdani will convince Albany to authorize the tax hikes on millionaires he says the City so desperately needs to balance its own books." A mayor in a permanent budget crisis is not one likely to be able to deliver the sweeping social programs he promised.
Free buses? Not this year, we're broke, remember? Rent freeze? Probably? Department of Community Safety? We got the diet version. Universal child care? Looking good, so long as the money keeps flowing from the state—but now we're talking about money again.
But what if the mayor could make life easier for New Yorkers right now, without spending billions of taxpayer dollars and his own rapidly vanishing political capital? What if an engine of New York City's potential was sitting right in front of us, obscured by trash bags, puke, and millions and millions of cars?