May 7, 2025 — Most of the candidates running for mayor of New York City have explicitly described the Trump administration as creating an emergency for the city, including in their assessments the prospect of reduced federal funding. But it is unclear how much they appreciate fully the impact of what is likely coming; what is clear is that they don’t want to tell the voting public that emergencies often have deeply unpleasant consequences, not all of which can be warded off, and that, in the short term, our city cannot make its choices in a business-as-usual kind of way.
It’s not as though the candidates are carbon copies of one another in respect to responding to Trump (except for a broad consensus that illegal cuts need to be fought in court). Current City Comptroller Brad Lander came out in February with a proposal to add “at least $1 billion to the city’s general reserve” as means by which to protect the city (in part) from federal funding cuts. State Senator Zellnor Myrie has asserted that, if the Trump administration withholds funds in defiance of court rulings, “we will withhold our tax dollars from the federal government, and we will march in the streets.” (The second part is lawful; the first part is not.) Former Governor Andrew Cuomo is remaining at the highest level of generality, stating in a speech recently only that “we’re going to have to work twice as hard now” because “we’re going to have less federal money.”
They do, however, appear to be united in not admitting that emergencies require sacrifice. And united particularly in not giving the public the sober news that sacrifice means not doing some things that would be wonderful to do.
Note that virtually none of the candidates (and none that have raised a lot of money) would have any difficulty pointing to the absurdity of the GOP sticking to its formula regardless of conditions. Republicans, for example, can whistle past the climate-change graveyard all they want, but those changes are with us, will get worse, and require action. New York City Democrats have no problem pointing this out. Likewise, Republicans say that tax cuts for the wealthy are the solution to everything. Good economic conditions? The rich deserve a tax cut. Bad economic conditions? Same. Getting to hot and muggy early in June? Same. The main candidates here would not hesitate to criticize this Johnny-one-note approach.
Nevertheless, we’re not hearing about any potential mayoral target for budget cuts but are hearing ambitious plans (many of which would be great to execute, if it were possible). Lander vows to achieve “genuinely universal Pre-K and 3-K” and then work to expand to 2-K. Former Comptroller Scott Stringer wants to reduce the cost of childcare and extend school hours to 4:30pm. Myrie outbids them with a proposal for free, universal afterschool until 6pm for students from 3-K through 12th grade.
Building more housing, not surprisingly, tops the list for every candidate.
But how to pay for more of everything while getting less for everything? State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani claims that his proposals will be able to be paid for (this doesn’t account for lower federal funding) by raising the local tax on millionaires by 2 percent and by raising the top corporate income tax rate by 4 percent (to a total of 11.5 percent). Mamdani acknowledges that this would be “a difficult fight” but says, “I think it is one that we can win.” (This is either an elliptical way of saying “there is a zero percent chance of Albany enacting either, but I want you to understand my aspirations,” or else an eyebrow-raising indication that he neither appreciates that Kathy Hochul is governor and he’d be coming into office in her election year, nor that there is greater concern today among Democratic State Senators and Assembly Members about wealthy individuals and businesses fleeing New York than there was in 2021.)
Beyond the easy response of candidates saying, properly, that they’ll look for “efficiencies,” the uncomfortable answer is that we will either cut a limited number of not-unimportant programs deeply because that is the nature of prioritizing and triaging in an emergency, or else come to trim everything unselectively.
What’s odd is that our city’s conundrum is not very difficult to understand. Saying that the federal government has a central role to play in paying for a decent society isn’t just a rhetorical joust; it is a fundamental fact of who has the necessary resources (we have already suffered horribly from 45 years of federal disinvestment in housing, most acutely disinvestment in public housing). Fight back against illegal cuts, yes; deny reality, no.
What’s even more odd from a progressive point of view is that the position we’re in with the Trump administration is described as a moment of maximum danger. It is. What happened to the idea that resistance involves not simply social-media posts and protest marches, but genuine struggle and sacrifice? To the idea that power actually has to be reckoned with, not magically exhorted away.
I’ve always been a proud tax-and-spend-and-improve-services-and-don’t-accept-false-claims-that-a-better-society-can’t-be-paid-for-and-achieved guy, and I still am. But I look at current conditions and know in my head and heart that, as noted at the outset, we need, right now, to change our way of thinking to address what is here and what is around the corner. (Things could get better in 2027 after a good result in the 2026 midterms, but they won’t get a lot better.)
Here’s one of my worries about these candidates. Since the city and state budgets (unlike the federal government’s) do have to be balanced each year, I’m imagining that we will go through the rest of the primary and general election season without hearing about sacrifice or triage, then be faced (if we aren’t before then) with the need for significant cuts, and then see not the prioritize-and-triage method, but rather the worst possible way to proceed: across-the-board cuts (invariably to be described as “modest” and to the maximum extent through attrition). It’s a way of avoiding an explosion of rage from those affected by selective, significant cuts, but it’s also a prescription for making us the City of Mediocre, where everything functions less well.
Let’s pick a different path and, in the next seven weeks, make the candidates, over their kicks and screams, tell us in detail how they would navigate the selective-cut path.