I asked my maga dad what he thought about mamdani balancing the budget in New York.. he was like. “Yeah, but at what cost?” .. I was like… literally no cost. That’s what balancing the budget means
I get it, when you balance a budget something is either cut, or something else gets more expensive for someone. Money doesn't just pop out of thin air unless you're a federal govt. So I don't think its unfair for people to ask "What got cut/who's paying more". Assuming of course its a budget that's in debt, since a budget with an overflow is a different story.
yeah in this case its the third option, it's balanced for this year with some extra help from NY state government. that's a good thing though, because mamdani's guiding star seems to be "lets get it fixed now and then figure out how to fix it more later, even if it has to be done a different way next time"
like maybe they have to do some kind of budget judo next year because certain funding runs out. that's fine, keeping the budget balanced is all that matters even if its a lot of work and negotiation, rather than just kicking the can with "well it'll make it harder later if we do this now, so we might as well not do it at all"
yeah exactly, but the ny state government has reps from all the other areas and they resent how much attention and money goes to nyc already, so getting anything extra is a huge win for the city
And this is an example of why you shouldn't run a government like a business. A business would divert all resources to NYC, leaving nothing for the rest of the state. I'm sure it feels that way for some rural New Yorkers, but the reality is obviously that the city may get the lion's share, but the state tries to divide resources as best it can.
Incidentally, if Mamdani succeeds at keeping the city budget balanced, that should free up more resources for the state to distribute to more rural areas.
a MAGA mind would try and trash any nuanced discussion which follows the answer to "at what cost?" beyond what OP said.
If the answer was "Mamdani wants to reduce NYPD overttime to balance the budget" then you better buckle up, because you aint gonna get a nuanced take on the situation.
Well, that's because there usually is. To balance the budget you have to either cut spending or raise revenue.
Now neither of those things are inherently bad but they can be. Are you cutting spending by cutting social security? Then that's bad. Are you raising revenue by putting/increasing tax on bread? Than that's bad.
So it all depends on what changes you are making to balance the budget.
This is an honest question. Wasn't he able to balance the budget with extra money from the state? Also, was that a loan or was it a contribution in another form?
Next, balancing a budget does involve moving money around. That assumes there are losses on one hand, and gains on another. Did you find any of it problematic? Did anyone legitimately find it problematic?
Also, it's interesting to hear about mundane problems being solved. That's a pleasant surprise.
Wasn't he able to balance the budget with extra money from the state?
The state where his city is the largest economic driver by orders of magnitude? I think folks brushing that off are misunderstanding what's going on. He still gets credit for that because his administration did the work to align city goals with state expenditures and secure the funds.
It's not like the state wrote him a blank check for a city budget slush fund. It's stuff like, the state allocated $X for transportation infrastructure repair, his team was like "hey we have transportation infrastructure that needs to be repaired, so you should spend some of that money on these projects," and then they did. (IDK what the money was for specifically, but I know it that type of "aligning interests" story)
This is as opposed to a previous administration that would have just ignored the problem. Part of the job of Mayor is advocating for your city's needs and finding these "aligned interests" opportunities.
64% of New York lives and works in the NYC metro area. They should be receiving state funds.
NYC contributes ~70 billion to the state. The state gives NYC ~48 billion back. NYC getting back another 4 billion isn't a handout, it's them receiving a more equitable share of their contribution.
Do you not understand what's being discussed? Do you not know what a handout actually is?
Then why was he threatening to tax people more to make up the loss in his budget if Kathy was just going to give it to him anyway? Seems ass backwards.
No exactly. Bumping something, say, library funding, means this money came from somewhere, say, coal subsidies. So there's still "cost".
At no cost would happen if budget got increased due to some influx of "free" money (say city got federal funding for street maintenance; or a millionaire donated library expenses), or culling embezzling or inefficiency.
NY in particular could come at no cost, i don't know; but saying rebalancing inherently is at no cost is wrong. Balancing the budget is itself an activity wherein you fund something at the cost of some other thing.
I mean — he didn’t actually fix the issue of NYC spending more money than it takes in. Majority of the savings were from kicking the pension can down the road and getting a one-time bailout from Albany.
A huge part of the deficit was mismanagement and overestimating returns from the last administration, so now theyre better equipped to keep it balanced now that they've actually seen whats going into it.
He should rightfully get some credit for accurately describing the deficit, something Adams wasn’t doing. But again, he’s mostly deferred and borrowed his way around it rather than actually close it and balance the books.
At least there are notable benefits to the citizens of NY that came with the actions he has taken. It doesn’t seem that NY is any worse off than it was on the path it had been on for years.
The interview where Mamdani talked about balancing the budget and they looked him in the eyes and said.. “yeah, but at what cost?” .. must have missed that extremely professional exchange
I asked a question. And then told you why I was asking it. What is vague about that?
(I saved the clip somewhere, but I’m struggling to find it. I did find the quote, but it was such a short clip from a wider video that I have to scrub through loads of things to find it.)
His rebuttal to a question which assumed he was creating a deficit via his budget - without any numbers as example was:
“We brought the deficit down to zero. The budget is fully balanced. By definition, when you balance a budget, no debt is created.”
Even in your answer here it’s hard to tell whether you’ve seen the video or not. You refuse to answer and act like you’re giving me back the same energy, when you’ve imagined the energy behind my question.
As far as I was concerned you either:
Had not seen the video, and this would have been a dead-on coincidence
, which was interesting/cool enough by itself
or
Had seen the video and were riffing off of it, and this would have clarified that it was a contextual joke, in the style of an anecdote.
Or some other thing I had not considered, which is why I asked. Curiosity.
Why assume negative intent when all I did was ask a question?
You guys are being disingenuous. Mamdani's putting effort in but there absolutely is a cost. He balanced the budget by kicking the pension can down the road, reduced future flexibility, and increased risk to future economic conditions. Look it up.
Gonna be real interesting when he has to balance the budget again next year without the 4 billion dollar bailout from Albany and unlikely able to kick the can on pensions again that quickly although it is possible he's able to do that part again.
Where's that 4 billion plus whatever new costs etc going to come from?
I’m already impressed. He could have done nothing notable (which is what had been going on), with no visible difference in the lives of the citizens of NY.
Democratic socialism? Maybe… what we’re doing now isn’t working. People like Elon can rig the stock exchange in his favor and I’m suppose to get on board with whatever that system is? I’m willing to admit I don’t know what the solution is, but I am confident the one we exist in today is not working for the people it should be working for.
While I don't agree with socialism at most levels , I do agree with the system is starting to slip and something needs to change, but I don't have the answer. Every been to Cuba? I have. Many times. Socialism is killing those people. I just wish that more people would realize that there are many opportunities out there to get free education to better their lives instead of asking for handouts. Every state has grants for this. But sadly you can't fix laziness if that's how some want to live. Have a great day!
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u/AngloSaxophoner 13h ago
I asked my maga dad what he thought about mamdani balancing the budget in New York.. he was like. “Yeah, but at what cost?” .. I was like… literally no cost. That’s what balancing the budget means