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Some people are starting to get nervous about a tax hike that the mayor says is supposed to be a backup plan to taxing the rich. "Find another way. There's got to be another way."
So betrayed New Yorkers are taking to the streets and to the steps of city hall to protest the mayor's new tax increases, which he promised would only affect the rich, but now appears squarely aimed at working-class voters already struggling with an affordability crisis. So the mayor can fund his swath of free programs which will be open to just about everyone, even if they're in America without permission. And as this takes shape, some people are predicting New York City's experiment with communism is going to transform this place permanently.
"Tenants, local officials, and organizations alike took to the steps of city hall with a clear message." It comes weeks after Mayor Zoran Mdani put out a plan to close a $5.4 billion gap in the city's budget.
"That's why Campbell was among the dozens of homeowners in southeast Queens who turned out for what they say was an emergency response to the mayor." "Do your job AS MAYOR AND LEAVE OUR TAXES OUT."
"THIS IS coming from someone who has never had to fight for anything in his life, who grew up in privilege and wealth." "There's no restraint. They just come to us as if we're an ATM machine." She says the Mandani tax act, if it comes to fruition, will affect her tenants, too. "It's going to make it much harder for me to replace the boiler. Instead, I'm going to repair it. Patch a roof instead of repay replacing a roof."
"You are giving only two options. You're saying if we don't tax the rich, then I got to increase property taxes." "It will put us in a hole. We will be at a deficit."
So, as we talk about all the stuff the mayor wants to pay for, it looks like the industrial fraud complex has no plans to let go of New York anytime soon. And what nobody's talking about is that endless funding for free programs that are open to the entire world have set New York City on a course it may never correct from. And while this may have started with the asylum crisis that saw hundreds of thousands of folks moved into luxury hotels with all their bills paid for, this created an entire industry dedicated to receiving government money in ways that had never been possible before. And that industry is now so large it's self-sustaining because the more money you give out, the more people who are negatively affected. "IF YOU STOP GIVING THAT MONEY OUT, which means we've just got to give out more and more and more." You see, at the same time, nothing is being done to help New Yorkers live here on their own. And the statistics are shocking. A record 350,000 are currently homeless. And one out of every three New Yorkers spends more than half their income on rent. And when you add to that super expensive milk at the grocery store, there just isn't any room left in people's budgets for the mayor's plans.
Which brings us to the real reason PEOPLE ARE ON THE STEPS OF CITY HALL protesting tax increases. These are people who think that if they have to pay for one more thing, that's it. They're going to have to leave. And they might be right. But here's the bad news for all of the folks who are upset and feel betrayed by the mayor. Even if these property hikes get postponed, nobody wants to admit the number of millionaires here is finite and shrinking fast. Which means these taxes we're hearing about today, they're just going to come back tomorrow. On top of that, if you're going to hike up the rates for rich people to live here, these are the people who own businesses and rent OUT APARTMENTS. HOW ARE THEY GOING TO GET THEIR MONEY BACK? They're going to pass it on to their customers one way or the other, which means the affordability equation here doesn't really change.
But wait, maybe New Yorkers are getting something back, which is better than what they're being asked to put in. Maybe this is going to be a great thing and the city's best days are ahead of it. "We are rolling out today is for parents of 2-year-olds in the neighborhoods that we have listed, no matter the amount of money they make, the occupation they have, their immigration status, so long as they live there, they can apply. The application uh process will become open sometime in early summer."
Awesome. Government funded child care programs that are being rolled out as quickly as possible, paid for by every single person who lives here. What could go wrong?
"Going to a lot of these daycare centers. We're trying to find a spot for our little boy Joey," "but uh we thought maybe we could check him in the autism center" "cuz none of the daycare centers are open. Yeah. And how many kids do you guys have at this autism center?" "I can't give you a name right now. Are you a news reporter?" "My name's Nick. We're doing a little documentary trying to find little Joey a spot to put himself in one of these centers here."
As America has learned recently, these types of programs, they might not attract the children the programs are designed for, but because this is America's largest sanctuary city that has billions of dollars to just dole out. No other city has that. And for that reason, some people think the fraud here is going to get even worse than what we've seen even in places like Minnesota. Okay, so here's a connection that you really need to understand. As you just heard Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez say, everyone can sign up for these new programs in New York, no matter what their status is in the country. Now, that's because New York is a sanctuary city. These politicians, they think they're being very generous. But one of the ways that state auditors in Minnesota were able to catch fraud was they realized that the number of daycares greatly eclipsed the population. Right? There was a major imbalance in some places and they figured out gee uh hey Governor Tim should we look at this stuff? He did say no, by the way. But if you've got a sanctuary city with hundreds of thousands of people living in it who are undocumented, how do you prove there are or are not too many child care facilities? You can't. Which means the city is setting itself up to spend unlimited amounts of money on something that is already out of control.
"Free daycare for 2-year-olds this fall. We're expecting a second kid on the way and so universal 2K means that we are going to be able to afford to stay in New York." "Alongside Governor Hochul Tuesday, Mayor Mdani announced the first 2,000 2K seats." "It will place at least $20,000 per child back in the pockets of parents across our city and will make it possible for countless parents to return to the careers they love."
Wait a second. There's only 2,000 seats. I can count the number of parents who are going to be able to return to the careers they love. 2,000. And we got a city of 8 million people who are expected to pay for this stuff. And that's the whole problem with communism that New York City is about to learn hard and fast. An unlimited amount of money is required to dole out specific things to a select group of people. A finite group of people. You see, YOU HAVE A FINITE OUTCOME which requires unlimited resources. This is a big problem. Not to mention, if you do not have children and you live in New York City and your rent goes up because your landlord's getting hit to pay for this stuff, your life just got harder. You receive zero benefit from this. And because these are daycares, child cares, the mayor has just signaled to the entire industrial fraud complex in America that the best thing you can do if you want to live live affordably in New York is to come here right now and build a daycare. Set it up. Do it fast. Money's coming.
"Tenants, local officials, and organizations alike took to the steps of city hall with a clear message." "Find another way. THERE'S GOT TO be another way." comes weeks after Mayor Zoran Mdani put out a plan to close a $5.4 billion gap in the city's budget. Mayor Mani says the first option would be a 2% tax increase on the city's top earners and corporations. But if that falls through, the second option would be a 9.5% property tax increase. The mayor previously emphasizing the latter as a last resort.
"How do you close a spending problem by not saving money? You've got all this money that you're worried where's it going to come from? Why does it need to COME FROM ANYWHERE? WHY DON'T WE JUST NOT SPEND THE MONEY?" WELL, THE answer to that is the industrial fraud complex in the country learned its lesson. They better go to a place where it's easier to hide and where there's actually more money available. And that's because scaling back these programs is not on the table. $20,000 per child. That's insane money going into the pockets of people running daycares. Meanwhile, no plan has been put forth to check on these places and make sure they're actually full of children, but oh, we're going to fund them. And what are we going to get in exchange from that? How is this going to help the affordability equation for people who go to the grocery store and see milk that they can't afford or see eggs they can't even afford to buy? Prices, which by the way are higher here than anywhere else because of all the fees these businesses like your grocery STORE ALREADY HAVE TO PAY. IT'S CHEAPER to buy food in places like New Jersey. That's why there's people that every weekend they leave New York and they go to New Jersey to buy their food and they come back. That's how much cheaper it is.
"That falls through. The second option would be a 9.5% property tax increase. The mayor previously emphasizing the latter as a last resort." "This is something that we do not want to do and this is something that we are going to utilize every single option to ensure does not come to pass."
But in order for the first plan to work, it would need the governor's support. News 12 previously reported though, Governor Kathy Hochul agreed to increase funding but was in opposition to the first plan. She gave money for this making plan B feel more like a plan A for rallers.
"It will put us in a hole. We will be at a deficit because most of the people where we live in Queens, we are retirees and we are on a fixed income." "That's Maria." "Wow. Okay. So, people are on fixed incomes. And even if YOU'RE NOT A RETIREE, your job isn't giving you a 10% raise every year. Let's just put it that way. Plus, the cost for homeowners might be even worse than what we're being told. We have to pay flood insurance and our flood insurance is up the up, you know, since Sandy."
News 12 previously reported that Mayor Mdani assigned chief of saving officers in different departments to see if there were any ways to cut costs. "Yeah, they didn't find anything. But you know what building owners are finding out is that the cost to run their dilapidated building that just keeps creeping up and up and up and up and up. Every single year it gets tougher. The fuel to fuel the building because landlords are required to provide hot water, cold water, and heat. Well, the boiler that costs more money to fill up. It costs more money to repair when it breaks. And every single thing that goes into an apartment, all those old radiators, the air conditioners, the lighting, everything, all that stuff keeps going up, too. So, the cost to operate these buildings goes up. Now, they're all going to get hit with a property tax increase. This is nightmare news for renters, and they don't even know it. But noticeably absent from phase one is Staten Island."
"Oh," "you know, last week we were left out in the snow. This this week we're left out in the cold." Borough President Vito Facella says after his residents waited days for snow plows to clear parts of Staten Island following last week's blizzard, they will now wait longer than the other boroughs for 2K. Why?
"But if there was a plan to put these things in place, shouldn't that have been a negotiation or conversation to try to identify locations?" Mayor Mdani says this first phase is a result of partnerships with existing child care providers. "These determinations were made in part uh on a reflection of which neighborhoods had those providers ready to go before the end OF THIS YEAR."
"OH, SO LISTEN TO THAT. WE'RE GOING TO roll out citywide child care, but your neighborhood doesn't get it if we don't think you have enough providers already. So if the the industrial fraud complex, if that hasn't come to your neighborhood yet, we're not going to spend any money." Now, of course, not every day in the city is fraudulent. OF COURSE NOT. BUT EVERYBODY IN NEW YORK voted for all this free stuff. They said, "You know what? We want all this free stuff. We love it. It sounds great. We got an affordability problem. Let's get the free child care. Let's get the free grocery stores." But then when it's time to roll out those free programs, PEOPLE SAY, "HEY, WAIT A SECOND. WE WANTED FREE GROCERY stores in every SINGLE NEIGHBORHOOD AT ONCE. WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE'S ONLY THE FIRST FREE GROCERY stores going over there and I got to pay for it?" Or the first free child care over here and you want me TO PAY FOR IT? THAT'S NOT WHAT I VOTE FOR. YES, IT IS. YES, IT IS how it works.
"And also as a reflection of economic need," "applications for the first 2,000 seats will open this summer. It's going to fill up quick." "microphone them 2000 seats. They're like fascinated by that." "It is a moth to a flame. I'm telling you," "constantly. So, what about Staten Island? Will this program eventually be offered to those folks in that borough?" "Yes, Christine. So, this is just phase one of what with 2,000 seats for this fall."
But here's the problem with that. All of this is being done to solve the affordability problems every single resident in New York City is facing at once. And if you have to pay for something today and it is eventually going to show up in a few months, in a few years, your affordability equation just got worse. And you get absolutely nothing for it at the exact same time. There's only 2,000 seats in the program here, which means everyone pays for something not everyone has access to. That is not affordability.
Taxes were $2,800. Now they're $11,000. Mdani's tax hike would mean another hike of over a thousand dollars and he's furious. "This is coming from someone who has never had to fight for anything in his life who grew up in privilege and wealth. So of course raising property taxes on rich people, you know, such as himself isn't much of a burden."
It's not just about Porsche owns two small westside buildings which each have 10 apartments. "There's no restraint. They just come to us as if we're an ATM machine." She says the Mdani tax hike, if it comes to fruition, will affect her tenants too. "It's going to make it much harder for me to replace a boiler instead. I'm going to repair it." "Patch a roof instead of repay replacing a roof." Those are the kinds of decisions you have to make when you know 40% of your rent roll is going to the city in property taxes. 40% of the income from renting out apartments goes to the city. That means if you have a building with 10 apartments, four of those apartments you effectively collect nothing on. You got to run the whole building on the rent from the other six and repair it. And if you can't do that, what happens? You have to raise the rent. And you know something, the dirty little secret here, this landlady that we've got on the news, her taxes are going up either way. And it's her job to rent apartments cuz that's what she does for a living. If she's a millionaire, she's getting hit with the tax when it applies to millionaires. If she's not a millionaire, she's getting hit with the property tax. So, one way or the other, she has to raise the costs for people to live in her building. And let's say she wasn't an apartment owner. Let's say she owned spaces that had commercial tenants. Well, the property tax hits them, too. So, you got some business, some restaurant you enjoy eating at. Well, guess what? Their rent's going up, too. If you got some business that sells little products THAT YOU LIKE TO BUY, LITTLE TRINKETS THAT YOU LIKE TO GO OUT AND BUY IN New York, little souvenir shop or something, guess what? But those are going to cost more too because their rent's going up.
More painful. The mayor and Governor Kathy Hochul are digging in on their differences over what he wants from her "to increase taxes on the wealthiest and the most profitable corporations" and what she says in return. "I don't support a property tax increase on New Yorkers and I'm not wavering from my position."
It's an unusual dance playing out between the two Democrats who have endorsed one another. The governor has already committed billions to plug the budget hole and help the mayor keep his free money. New Yorkers can wonder why Mayor Mdani isn't changing his tune, even threatening to raise property taxes by 9.5% if the state refuses to tax the rich.
And this is after the governor promised all the money necessary to pay for these programs for the next few years. And you know what this signals? This signals that the true nature of what this is all going to cost is bigger than anyone can possibly imagine. At the exact same time, this number 9.5%, it's being teased now as a nuclear option. Mayor says he doesn't want to do it. Well, guess what? In a few years or in a few months when these plans don't work out and the mayor comes back with a 4.25% tax, instead he's going to say, "Yeah, well, you know, hey, it's half what we were asking for before." And we have this entire fight right now over these communist plans to roll out programs that everybody pays for and only a few people get. And guess what? There's not enough money for it. And there never will be. That's why we have a $5.8 billion budget cap to begin with. This place is on a collision course with bankruptcy and nobody wants to stop it. People are trying to accelerate it. At the same time, what are we told about these programs that everybody has to pay for? We're told that they make New York City stronger. Well, how do they do that? How is New York City stronger when everyone has to pay more for something that only a few people have access to? How is that better for us? And I get that these programs are sold as an investment, but guess what? If you own a building and it's falling apart and you have to repair the foundation so the place doesn't collapse, you could say, "Okay, the foundation is going to cost THIS MUCH TO REPAIR. IT'S GOING TO LAST, you know, 20 years before I got to do it again, and this is how much I need to raise rents, and I can figure out exactly when my investment's going to pay off." But all these free programs that are magnets for fraud, when do they pay off? HOW DO WE DO THAT CALCULATION TO FIGURE OUT WHEN everyone's going to get their money back and when the world's going to be a happy magical place? We can't. I don't see how this is going to work. I don't see how there are going to be people whose lives are made better off from it. Maybe I'm wrong. What do you think? I'll see you in the next.