ROBERT HORNAK
FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE QUEENS REPUBLICAN PARTY
RAHORNAK@GMAIL.COM
Robert Hornak is a veteran political consultant who previously served as deputy director of the Republican assembly leader’s NYC office and as executive director of the Queens Republican Party. He can be reached at rahornak@gmail.com and @roberthornak on X.
If you voted for Zohran Mamdani thinking he really cared about making living in NYC more affordable, you’re in for a rude awakening.
Mamdani campaigned on making NYC more affordable, while only offering a few ideas that might save a few people a few dollars here and there. No grand plan to really cut the major expenses for New Yorkers. But there was a grand plan to pay for it all.
Tax the rich.
That’s been his mission, and as we just learned he’s perfectly willing to sacrifice his alleged agenda to get what he really cares about. Higher taxes.
New Yorkers have been here before. New York had a “tax the rich” surcharge not long ago. It was supposed to solve all our budget problems. The problem was twofold. First, it kicked in for individuals at $200,000 and families at $300,000. Well below millionaire income levels. Tax the rich never only includes the rich. And, even worse for these big spenders, it was set to expire in 2011.
That’s right. When NY Democrats originally passed it, they claimed we only needed it as a temporary measure to shore up budget shortfalls. But when the expiration approached, they realized they increased spending too much and would have to make some spending choices rather than have the all-you-can-eat option at the budget buffet.
This was a central part of the Occupy Wall Street protests, which was really just a mash up of every left wing cause expressed as general rage against the system. But they one thing they all had in common was they were all in for taxing the productive members of society. Their mafia-esque approach to governing – you may have earned it but it’s ours so feel lucky with what we allow you to keep – was and continues to be the driving force of their exis-tence.
A compromise was reached, creating new tax brackets for high earners, and this was going to solve the budget problem. But that wasn’t good enough for them, it never is. They still managed to grow spending faster than income and, therefore, the rich are never paying enough for them.
And they will say anything to justify their lust for raising taxes. And that’s exactly what we are seeing now with Mamdani. To enact his “affordability” agenda, he is dead set on making life here less affordable in the process. If he can’t get the tax increase he wants from Albany, he will stomp his feet, throw a fit, and screw everyone in the city with higher taxes on – well, everything.
Ultimately, higher property taxes make everything more expensive Businesses will pass on the cost to their customers. Property owners will pass on the cost to their renters. Free buses and free childcare for a small group of city residents will hardly offset this pervasive increase.
It makes you question if Mamdani was ever really serious about affordability, as he prepares to enact massive tax increases on everyone to pay for some fairly trivial programs.
In 2002, when Michael Bloomberg passed his 18.5% property tax increase (and the rates have not gone down since), it was for the same reason as now. The city wants to spend more – much more – than it is raising. And this is how they always try to solve the problem. But, somehow, the problem never seems to go away. Spending less never seems to be a consideration.
In NYC, where people are paying the highest taxes in the country, with a tax for everything under the sun, it should be clear that raising taxes again is not the solution. This is how the city became so expensive to begin with. So we are forced to ask, was Mamdani serious about making living in the city more affordable for everyone, or is his real agenda something else entirely.
