We all heard Zohran Mamdani’s mantra during the mayoral campaign – “Tax the rich!” Now that he is mayor, he found out that he can’t exactly do that. He needs the governor and state legislature to raise taxes, then allocate the money to NYC so he can afford his campaign promises, like universal childcare and his “Department of Community Safety.” He also claims to have inherited a $12B budget deficit, but then he revised that down to $5.5B. What’s clear is that the City is in a hole and now Mamdani is panicking and making threats and issuing an ultimatum. He said during the introduction of his preliminary budget that he will implement an across-the-board property tax increase of 9.5% to raise money to fill the hole unless Gov. Kathy Hochul taxes the rich. This is an election year for Hochul, so she isn’t likely to do that, and the City Council pretty much declared that this budget proposal was dead on arrival. We understand that budget negotiations will likely not result in this happening, but what exactly is this guy doing? Let’s recall that Mamdani was also vowing to fix the unfair property tax system, but now has pivoted to taxing every property owner more. Has it ever dawned on him that the budget deficit can be corrected by having agencies not spend money wastefully? It appears the inexperienced Mr. Mamdani is “The Not Ready for Primetime Mayor.” The dumbest thing about this is watching all the spellbound pols who endorsed him scramble to stop his runaway budget train.