New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is confirming that he is precisely the sort of figure many critics warned he would be: An in-over-his-head communist with deep ties to terrorism sympathizers and antisemites — one of whom, it appears, is his spouse. While his base loves and shares his radicalism, many NYC voters were seduced by his “affordability” talk, sold with an ear-to-ear grin. Reality is now setting in.
Last month, Mamdani addressed a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall, warning that major tax increases will be necessary to try to close the gap. His top preference, he insisted, is a new “wealth tax,” which even many Democrats acknowledge would chase more wealth out of the city, as it has everywhere it’s been tried. Such counter-productive schemes have been such a failure that many European adopters were forced into retreat and repeal. California is currently bleeding companies and high-dollar taxpayers due to the threat of a looming, confiscatory wealth tax. If Mamdani doesn’t get his ruinous way on that front, however, he said major property tax increases will need to smack New Yorkers.
“The suggested 9.5 percent increase would affect more than three million single-family homes, co-ops and condos and over 100,000 commercial buildings,” the New York Timesreported in February, quoting Mamdani as admitting that this outcome would amount to an increased “tax on working- and middle-class” earners. Leftists campaign on soaking “the rich,” which might poll well ahead of an election — but their plans never work, their math doesn’t add up, and many voters end up discovering, often to their horror, that “rich” has been redefined to include, well, themselves. The latest sleight of hand involves Mamdani’s estate tax plan. Bloomberg reports that the mayor is now proposing “to raise New York’s estate tax to 50 percent and have it kick in at $750,000, instead of more than $7 million.” That is a massively lowered threshold for the death tax to kick in (far, far lower than any reasonable definition of “rich”), with a huge tax increase on top of it. The New York Post’s summary:…