Mamdani is there to make Hochul look moderate
She’s refusing to give him more and more money to play with in his Socialist paradise-to-be:
Mayor Zohran Mamdani joined forces with City Council Speaker Julie Menin to try to squeeze more dough out of Albany — a plea that an increasingly peeved Gov. Kathy Hochul rejected Tuesday.
Hochul was forced to answer questions about forking over more money to help bail out the Big Apple shortly after the lefty Mamdani and moderate Menin called to peel back a tax credit as the city struggles to fill a projected multibillion dollar budget gap.
The governor claimed she was turning the tap off, but political insiders questioned if her stance was firm after she has already appeased the democratic socialist mayor and the “tax the rich” crowd with a new proposed levy on pricey second homes in the city.
And then we have this:
Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed tax on luxury second homes in the Big Apple will fall far short of its $500 million goal — and drive wealthy residents out of the city, according to the city comptroller’s office.
City Comptroller Mark Levine found that the proposed policy — framed as a needed revenue booster for the city and state — would likely bring in closer to $340-$380 million, over $100 million less than Hochul and Mamdani have claimed.
Controllers actually have to do math.
More:
The tax — which would apply to secondary homes priced a $5 million or more and follow a sliding scale based on assessed value — would target around 13,000 residences, but the comptroller’s audit warned that revenue estimates move were based heavily on unknown factors.
Many of the pricey pads are rented to tenants by the owners, which may exclude them from the tax, and it was unclear how the levy would treat homes owned by trusts, LLCs, or family members.
The report, released Thursday, also looked at a similar tax implemented in Vancouver, Canada in 2017 — which resulted in nearly 60% of second home owners selling off their properties to avoid the costly fee as of 2025.
The comptroller assumes the city could see a similar scramble to sell homes — estimating an around 10% revenue loss.
Ah, but maybe they’ll institute the brilliant “exit tax” solution – taxing people who sell in order to leave the state. That’ll do wonders to attract a great many new buyers, right?
Hochul really can’t complain. Although her backing came rather late in the game, she endorsed Mamdani in the election.
More:
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin are calling for a new way to tax the rich. They want the state to reduce something called the Pass-Through Equity Tax credit, aka PTET.
“The PTET is essentially a loophole that allows high-income earners to reduce their federal tax burden,” Mamdani said. …
“That’s not happening,” Hochul said. “We are not changing PTET.”
Hochul said she has already found over $4 billion in state aid for the city, and that Mamdani and Menin have a spending problem.
“And we’ve encouraged the speaker and the mayor to do what every other city has to do, [which] is look at your expenses. What is growing exponentially? They have programs that are growing not 4% a year, but 4% [in] months. And so they have to do whatever the other city is doing,” Hochul said.
Socialists don’t believe in cutting expenses, Kathy. They never run out of other people’s money.
NOTE: Mamdani made this this classy move with King Charles:
Mamdani’s eagerness to avoid Charles was clear, his team distancing themselves from the king from the moment the 9/11 ceremony, at the World Trade Center, was announced. “The mayor will not meet privately with King Charles. But the mayor will be at the wreath laying ceremony today,” Joe Calvello, the mayor’s press secretary, said in a terse statement on Wednesday morning.
Charles should count himself lucky, as even the leftist Guardian acknowledges:
It was hardly the treatment Charles is accustomed to, but as the day unfolded it seemed he may have gotten lucky by avoiding a private audience. Asked on Wednesday morning what he would say to Charles if they were to spend time together beyond the ceremony, Mamdani said: “If I was to speak to the king separately from that, I would probably encourage him to return the Koh-i-Noor diamond.”
The 106-carat diamond, which currently sits in the crown worn by the queen mother, has been the subject of an ownership dispute since it came into the possession of Queen Victoria in 1849. Critics say the diamond, which is the size of a hen’s egg, was immorally taken from Duleep Singh, a 10-year-old maharajah whose kingdom was seized by the British.
Ken Griffin is meeting with Hochul and not Mamdani.
Mamdani mad all this very personal. Griffin is a $billionaire worth north of $50 billion. He persoanlly doesn’t need NYC, but his comapmny might.
Griffin has a lot to consider. I have no idea what he will do but if he does nothing, then that will be very interesting.
Yeah, but she’s not. The same woman who begged political and tax emigres to come back to NY just months ago will be the same hag thumping CA-style ‘exit taxes’ after winning reelection.
Communists with different names, same old flavor.
“exit taxes” are blatantly unconstitutional. Of course, since all taxation is ‘legalized’ theft, in principle, all taxes are unconstitutional.
“we’ve encouraged the speaker and the mayor to do what every other city has to do, [which] is look at your expenses.” Gov. Hochul
“As of April 2026, New York City faces a severe budgetary crisis with a projected deficit of over $5 billion to $10.4 billion”
The NYPD’s fiscal year 2026 preliminary budget is approximately $6.7 billion. So Mamdani can easily cut into his deficit by defunding the police.
And from whom did Duleep Singh, a 10-year-old maharajah, steal it from?
Yes. The Constitution. That’ll stop ’em…
And who exterminated 400 million Hindus and Buddhists in the Mamdani Genocide?
Geoffrey Britain on April 30, 2026 at 6:33 pm said:
” “exit taxes” are blatantly unconstitutional. Of course, since all taxation is ‘legalized’ theft, in principle, all taxes are unconstitutional.”
But Article I, Section 8 – Powers of Congress says
“The Congress shall have the Power To lay and collect Taxes, ….”
so even if you believe taxation is theft rather than just payment for government services rendered to the benefit of the tax payers, it is still constitutional.
And of course the 16th Amendment expands on that power.
@SHIREHOME: And from whom did Duleep Singh, a 10-year-old maharajah, steal it from?
The Koh-i-Noor diamond was originally “looted” by Nader Shah, the emperor of Iran from 1736-1747.
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The first verifiable record of the diamond comes from a history by Muhammad Kazim Marvi of the 1740s invasion of Northern India by Afsharid Iran under Nader Shah. Marvi notes the Koh-i-Noor as one of many stones on the Mughal Peacock Throne that Nader looted from Delhi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koh-i-Noor
_________________________________
It changed hands a number of times. Queen Victoria was given the diamond after British East India Company annexed Punjab in 1849, during the reign of Duleep Singh, Maharaja of the Sikh Empire.
I’m not clear to whom Mamdani wishes the stone returned, but clearly the British shouldn’t have possession.
If those are the rules, personally I’d like to see Muslims return Constantinople and stop whining about Israel and Andalusia.
Islam is the only religion whose sacred text contains an entire chapter on booty, or the spoils of war.
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They ask you “O Prophet” regarding the spoils of war. Say, “Their distribution is decided by Allah and His Messenger. So be mindful of Allah, settle your affairs, and obey Allah and His Messenger if you are true believers.”
—Quran 8:1, “Al-Anfal, the Spoils of War”
https://quran.com/8?startingVerse=41
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Somehow Jesus, Moses, Buddha, and Lao-Tse forgot this crucial teaching.
Clearly, Islam is the Religion of Peace.
What Unwillin’ Barkis said @ 5:50 pm.m:
“…after winning re-election…”
Yep, Governor Hokum has an election to win this November.
After that, assuming she wins it, she can insist she was taken out of context…and the destruction of NYC can proceed apace….
Essentially, Griffin has NO ONE to talk to.
He’s a pretty sharp dude…and after his “Chicago experience” he probably understands that…
Fully. (Except that…well…NYC is NYC.)
File under: New Yawk, New Yawk! The town is in HELL.
On the specific subject of state- or city-levied “exit taxes”, I would think they would be unconstitutional because they would be a regulation on commerce “among the several states” a power which is reserved to Congress (Art. 1, Sec. 8, Clause 3).
All it would take is one of those wealthy ex-residents – of CA, NYC, or whatever – to decide that it was worth the money to pay the lawyers to challenge it in federal court.
Dave L, I would bet that what are popularly called ‘exit taxes’ actually take advantage of the fact most wealthy people can’t unwind their connection to a place just by selling their house and will be a resident for at least part of a tax year. I suspect they are couched in the same language that collects income tax from sports and entertainment figures who are employed or earn money in a state for extremely brief periods that otherwise wouldn’t be considered residency for other purposes.
Couldn’t states disguise an “exit tax” as a “transfer tax” on real estate? Transfer taxes are fairly common already, and could be targeted at the wealthy with a higher rate on properties above some threshold value. Together with the pied-a-terre tax that Hochul wants, it would be hard to avoid. (p.s. I hope Hochul and Mamdani don’t read this blog and get any ideas.)
The state government should distribute funds to local governments as follows:
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1. Disaster relief (supplementary to federal relief).
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2. Payment-in-lieu-of-property-taxes on real estate owned by the state government, state government corporations, and the federal government. Posit you have county assessors; the state government could contest their assessments making use of the same procedures available to private parties. The payments would be part of various localities general revenues and available for any purpose within the enabling legislation of the locality in question.
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3. A formulaic general grant to county governments. The total sum to be distributed would be at the discretion of the legislature. The grant to each specific county would be positively correlated with population and inversely correlated with per capita income.
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4. A formulaic general grant to school districts. The grant to each district would be positively correlated with district population, positively correlated with the ratio of school age youth in a population to the remainder of the population, and inversely correlated with per capita income. Again, it would not have conditions placed on its use outside the enabling legislation for school districts.
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5. Payments to localities acting as state government contractors. Ideally, the contracts will have been awarded via sealed bids.
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And that’s it. New York City counts as both a county and as a school district. They get two checks from Albany per fiscal year and that’s it Unless there are services rendered under contract to the state or another hurricane hits Staten Island, you get nothing more. Don’t ask.
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Outside of the City, you might also have general revenue sharing whereby county governments make a formulaic distribution to their constituent municipal governments. Posit a state of affairs as well where philanthropic corporations pay property taxes to local governments but are then fully re-imbursed by the state government.
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Among other things the state might do is to vest the function of property tax assessment outside NYC in county governments and inside NYC in the state government, to require core city / suburban property be assessed biennially; to require all property in a jurisdiction be subject to a uniform levy unless the property was in an urban census bloc group wherein the per capita income fell below a certain threshold (in which case the levy rate would be a specified fraction of the general rate); to require woodlands, arable land, and pasture be assessed separately from country residences; and to require that woodland, arable land, and pasture be given a conventional value according to a formula which had the state’s farm revenues per acre as an argument.
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The state might also replace general sales taxes with a value added tax, limit the revenue sources of school districts to property taxes and a selection of fees for services (supplemented with value-added taxes in New York City and a dozen or so core cities Upstate), limited the revenue sources of New York City to value-added taxes, property taxes and a selection of fees; limited the revenue sources of counties outside the city to capped property taxes, value-added taxes, and selected fees; and limited the sources of municipalities outside the city to property taxes and selected fees (supplemented with value-added taxes in core cities). Fees a government could charge would be limited to those for (a) purchasing a service one might purchase from a private vendor were there one, (b) filing fees for courts and administrative tribunals, or (c) fees for delimiting a property right (e.g. a motor vehicle registration, real property transfer, pet license, &c).
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The state might also set the regulatory authority of local governments to (a) land use, (b) local adaptation of the state’s building and fire codes, (c) the use of public thoroughfares and common property, (d) terms and conditions of making use of local government services like water provision and garbage pick-up, and (e) the abatement of externalities (e.g. noise ordinances). Local governments should not have their own labor law and should not be in the business of regulating prices on any good or service not a natural monopoly and should not be in the business of regulating the prices of natural monopolies without warrant from the state.
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The state might also limit housing provision by local governments to emergency shelters and limit to the state government the authority to make cash transfers to individuals and households.
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New York might also have the state government administer Medicaid rather than sticking counties with the responsibility.
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Ending all government grants to private corporations of (bar disaster relief) would be a good thing. Kitty Carlisle, though grand, was wrong on this issue.
OK folks; you heard it here first !!
Mamdani is just establishing his hard core leftist “creds” in preparation for his run for President of the USA (perhaps with a brief respite along the way as a US Senator or Governor or US House rep – all from NY).
The failure of his policies in NYC – and they will fail – will be of no consequence. What matters will be the message he broadcasts to the voters; in short, ” I will work to help those in need and I will level the playing field by taking from the wealthy and giving it to the poor.”
Hey, it worked for Hugo Chavez, so it will for sure work in NY and even in the USA.
We see that the failure of leftist policies in Calif, Chicago, NYC (think DeBlasio, Dinkins, ), Seattle, Portland, LA., etc and/or the ignorance and stupidity of leftist candidates / politicians (think AOC, Cackling Harris, etc), is no detriment to these sorts of (yes, very dangerous people) assuming high political positions.
You can thank the voters for this.
As an aside:
in 1860 USA one side of the political aisle simply refused to accept the results of the national election that placed Lincoln the White House.
Today, one side also refuses to accept the results of the most recent presidential election.
In 1860 the “losing” side wished to be left alone.
In 2025, the “losing” side wishes to fundamentally change the USA.
Mamdani isn’t eligible to run for President (born in Uganda). But President Newsom can make him HHS Secretary.
…owned by trusts…