Mamdani says NYC must hike taxes on rich to fill deficit

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday said the city’s wealthiest must pay more in taxes to help fill the staggering $12 billion budget deficit he was left by his predecessors.

Mamdani, in an interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin at City Hall, said his administration will be up front with New Yorkers about budget issues that have been “hidden from them for far too long.”

Indeed, the new mayor is staring down a budget shortfall that is projected to total $12.6 billion over the next two fiscal years, NYC Comptroller Mark Levine said earlier this month. That comprises a $2.2 billion projected deficit on the city’s nearly $116 billion budget for fiscal year 2026, and a $10.4 billion gap the following year.

“This is at a scale that’s actually greater than what we saw here in New York City during the Great Recession,” Mamdani said.

He attributed the crisis to “gross fiscal mismanagement,” pointing to former Mayor Eric Adams and ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The plan to address the deficit will also include finding savings in the budget, Mamdani said. He gave the example of the Adams administration launching a “basically unusable” AI chatbot that reportedly cost about $600,000 to develop.

“I think the scale of this crisis is one where we have to pursue all of these things,” he told CNBC.

“I have to show that the city government is not just serious about public goods, but also public excellence and public efficiency, and so we have to make sure every dollar that’s being spent is actually being spent in a worthwhile way,” he said.

Mamdani, the 34-year-old former state assemblyman and self-described democratic socialist, had campaigned on hiking taxes on the city’s top earners.

He vowed to raise the city’s corporate tax rate to 11.5%, matching New Jersey’s, while imposing a flat 2% tax on New Yorkers earning more than $1 million a year.

Mamdani’s sudden rise to prominence — following his stunning upset victory over Cuomo in last year’s Democratic mayoral primary — has caused consternation among some of the city’s business elite, who warn that his redistributionist agenda could hobble the nation’s financial capital.

Asked by CNBC about the fears of a business exodus, Mamdani pushed back.

“Capital flight is always spoken about whenever we talk about the potential of increasing taxes on the wealthy,” Mamdani said.

He noted that the number of millionaires in New York has increased since the state raised taxes on the wealthy in 2021. And he stressed that his revenue plans are aimed at increasing the quality of city services.

“We’re sitting here right now in one of the coldest stretches in New York City weather history. One of the reasons why the city could start to get back on its feet was because we had a sanitation department that was staffed by thousands of people,” he said.

“That’s only possible when you’re actually investing in public service.”

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