NYC’s Shame

By
Richard C. Young
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NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani explains his Fiscal 2027 budget proposal. February 17, 2026. Photo courtesy of the Mayor’s office.

After electing an avowed socialist, New York City residents are just now beginning to understand what a mistake they have made. Mamdani announced in his budget pitch that, rather than tax the wealthy and corporations as he had campaigned on, he would instead be raising property taxes by 9.5% to fund his radical agenda. In The Spectator, Ben Clerkin, a New York City resident, criticizes Mamdani’s plans, writing:

I thought of Orwell’s allegory of the Russian revolution this week when our mayor threatened to increase property tax to pay for his huge $127 billion budget. He says he will be left with no other choice if Governor Kathy Hochul refuses his plan to tax the rich, increasing income levies on the ultra-wealthy and corporations.

The most obvious way of raising money was ignored: cutting costs. Mamdani has never had a job outside the public sector – save for a brief career as a rapper – nor has he ever run a large organization. The state has always taken care of him. And he wants the same for you, comrade.

Orwell’s pig leader, Napoleon, would be proud of the way Mamdani has presented this: the mayor vs the rich. Good vs evil. New York City is to become a superstate, a bureaucracy that will give to the needy by taking from the undeserving. But middle-class New Yorkers will inevitably pick up the tab. Remember Boxer, Orwell’s carthorse? “I will always work harder,” he wheezes, before the pigs ship him off to a glue factory.

The Internet hasn’t been kind to Mamdani either.

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