When Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced this January that the City was facing a $12 billion budget gap, he did so with the cleanest slate a mayor could have. None of the mess was his fault: The previous administration had massively underbudgeted expenses, leaving Mamdani to clean up a difference that, if left unresolved, would see public services cut at a level not seen since the Great Recession.
Today, in the same room where he called out Adams for playing games with the City's funds, Mamdani convincingly announced that in his first Executive Budget, he had practically erased the $12 billion gap over the next two years—without any cuts at all, thanks to some help from Governor Kathy Hochul.
But he wasn't able to do so cleanly. While the City budget could have been easily balanced with a simple and eminently popular tax on corporations and the wealthy, Governor Hochul held on to her steadfast resolve not to do that. Instead, Mamdani had to push some financial obligations to the future, while forgoing his campaign promises to reduce class sizes or fully fund housing vouchers for those facing homelessness.
"While you do not choose the deficit you inherit, you do choose how you respond to it," Mamdani told reporters on Tuesday. "Today, after three months of painstaking work, I am proud to announce that we have closed the gap entirely, down to zero. We have balanced the budget without placing the burden on the backs of working New Yorkers."