Mamdani

The past 50 years of globalization has created the largest income and wealth gap in history and no where is this more evident than New York City. New York has the greatest disparities in income of any major U.S. city, with the top 1 percent of the population getting 44 percent of the income in the city. That New York City has extreme wealth and extreme poverty, and lots of both, seems like a law of nature, older than the subway or the Brooklyn Bridge. When this happens, it is only a matter of time before some charismatic populist comes along with a promise to redistribute the wealth and Zohran Mamdani, the newly elected mayor of New York is just such a person. He is 34 years old and has been a state representative for 5 years. He has no business experience and will be responsible for the $112 billion dollar city budget. How was he able to achieve this is based on the old proven policy of taking from the rich and giving to the not rich. His platform is free city buses, rent freeze, free child care, increase minimum wage, city owned grocery stores and affordable housing. This will be paid for by raising $9 billion in new income taxes on the wealthy and business. This is the classic democratic policy which is pejoratively referred to as tax and spend. He also has promised to set aside $65 million for government funded gender surgeries, using mental health workers to respond to some police calls, reduce the jail population by closing Rikers Island, decriminalizing prostitution and certain misdemeanors, reforming the police department by reducing its scope and cutting overtime and provide housing for migrants. New York City has enough rich people so he can continue these policies for many years but in time, as is always the case with redistribution, you eventually run out of money.