Mamdani’s “Affordability” Agenda Could Be Extremely Costly

Submitted by Open The Books

Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old democratic socialist likely to be the next mayor of New York City, won the June democratic primary with the promise of making the city more affordable. His plans include more free or low-cost services, including creating city-owned grocery stores, making all city buses free, freezing rents on stabilized apartments, providing free childcare and raising taxes on the wealthy.

While that’s worrisome enough in a city facing potential annual budget gaps of $13 billion, a far more insidious threat to a Mamdani-run city are his anti-law enforcement and pro-offender stances and policy prescriptions.

The shooting rampage in midtown – which left an office dead — put those positions back in the spotlight, even spurring a press conference in which Mamdani downplayed old comments. He chalked them up to frustration over the death of George Floyd.

Detractors say his views could flip the country’s largest city from being one of the safest for gun violence and return it to the early 1990s era when there were 2,245 murders. His supporters counter that the mayor isn’t unilaterally powerful; additional sanctuary policies and major changes to police budgets and operations require approval from the City County or the State Assembly.

But the truth is, if elected, Mamdani would only be joining a large group of city and state politicians who have taken the radical left road of supporting those under arrest more than those who are victims of crimes.

And New Yorkers are already paying them handsomely.

While they support elements of critical legal theory and so-called racial justice, they are pulling in six-figure public salaries from the Assembly to the City Council to the comptroller’s office.

Expanding Sanctuary City Status

Mamdani is inherently anti-law enforcement, be it the NYPD, corrections officers or federal agents like Immigration and Customs Enforcement. His social media posts and comments while running for and holding the office of state assembly member made it clear that he dislikes police and wants to defund them. Now he claims he won’t.

But in fact, Mamdani sees NYC’s sanctuary city laws as too weak. Under current policy no one is asked their immigration status; homeless migrants are given free housing, food and pre-paid debit cards; and police are forbidden to cooperate with ICE on immigration matters.

Currently the NYPD still works with federal law enforcement like FBI and Homeland Security in cases where noncitizens have been convicted of serious or violent crimes. But Mamdani has said he would further restrict cooperation with federal authorities.

“The Trump administration is waging war on the First Amendment and our constitutional rights as it continues to abduct New Yorkers from across our city, “ he said in a candidate survey leading up to the primary. “Any effort to cooperate with these efforts is a moral stain on our city. We should strengthen our sanctuary city laws.”

Restricting — and Defunding? — Police

The NYPD is understaffed — it has 6,000 fewer cops than it did in 2000 when the force peaked at 40,000.

And it’s losing more every day.

Scott Munro, president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association, said there were 7,200 detectives before 9/11, but now there are fewer than 5,000. As of March, almost 400 had filed for retirement this year.

Michael Alcazar, a former NYPD detective who now teaches criminal justice at John Jay College, said the average detective is now handling more than 500 cases a year while also working patrol shifts.

Police officers continue to leave in droves, attracted by better pay elsewhere or frustrated by anti-police sentiment. The police commissioner has called it a “hiring crisis.”

The shrunken police force is also hampered by the new “How Many Stops Act” that mandates they collect and report data on all investigative encounters with the public. That includes low-level encounters not previously recorded, like helping a tourist with directions or helping a sick train passenger. Good Samaritanism now requires paperwork.

Unsurprisingly, the understaffed police department, forced into busy work, now have a record high response time of over 16 minutes for 911 calls, the highest times found in records dating back to the mid-1990s.

That’s as police work mandatory overtime; taxpayers have spent an unprecedented $1.2 billion on it so far in FY 2025. That’s more than twice what was budgeted for the year.

While Mamdani has walked back his years-long call to defund the police, claiming he won’t make workforce cuts, but he does plan to cut the police overtime budget. That’s tantamount to cutting the force when billions of dollars in enforcement happen beyond normal shift hours.

Instead, he wants to fund a Department of Community Safety that will have expanded “violence interrupter” programs and mental health teams, to the tune of $1.1 billion.

The budget would consist of $605 million transferred from existing city programs, and $455 million in new funding. He plans to raise it through increased property taxes in areas Mamdani has described as “richer and whiter.”

The democratic socialist also plans to eliminate the NYPD’s unit known as the Strategic Response Group that responds to protests.

Mamdani’s public safety plan claims the new Department of Community Safety will alleviate police workload so they can “do their actual jobs” and have the new department “fill the gaps of our programs and services.”

If he was interested in police doing their jobs, he’d alter his plan to cut their overtime and transfer some calls to social workers.

The police rank-and-file have said they will resign en masse if Mamdani is elected.

Releasing the Prisoners

Plans to close the Rikers Island jail complex and open borough-based jails have been in the works since the administration of Bill de Blasio, and with it has come the need to trim the jail population.

As of March, 7,067 people were incarcerated at Rikers, while the four yet-to-be-built jails (planned for all boroughs except Staten Island) are expected to hold 4,160 people beginning in 2027, at a cost of $16 billion.

This spring, NYC jails were turned over to a federal receiver — or independent manager — since jail officials effectively ignored a 2015 settlement that a court-appointed federal monitor team address issues like excessive force and violence in jails.

Jails have not become any less violent, and the Mayor Eric Adams administration has seen an uptick in arrests, bolstering a jail population that liberal leaders hoped would be dwindling by now.

But more arrests doesn’t mean more people staying in jail.

Since 2020, New York State ended the use of cash bail and pre-trial detention for most cases involving misdemeanors and lower-level felonies.

The law made release rather than detention the default in these cases, and those arrested for anything from assault, to burglary, robbery, arson, and many drug offenses, are back on the streets the next day.

In the first full year no cash bail was implemented, 3,460 adults were rearrested on violent felony charges — assault, rape and attempted murder — while their initial cases were still pending.

Of the 98,145 cases where individuals were released in that first year, nearly one-third led to a new arrest (mostly misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies) while their initial cases were still pending.

State legislators have amended the law since it passed in 2019 to give judges some discretion, although most crimes are still not eligible for bail.

Mamdani argues, it isn’t lenient enough.

To slim down the number of incarcerated, he’s said he would work with district attorneys to release more people pretrial or divert others from prosecution, according to the candidate survey.

He said there’s a need to invest in alternatives for incarceration, including supportive housing.

Other Leaders Failing NYC Residents

Mamdani’s blunt, candid policy comments in past years – paired with his proud declaration that he’s a democratic socialist – have made him a lightning rod. But plenty of current elect leaders are also radicals – out of touch with regular New Yorkers who want their streets clean and safe.

Their progressive policies, including those that make it harder for police to do their jobs, have paved the way for Mamdani to be attractive to enough voters to get him into City Hall.

When the City Council voted to pass the “How Many Stops Act,” Mayor Eric Adams, a former cop, vetoed it. But the council overrode his veto, implementing a law designed to tie the hands of police and make them think twice about engaging someone they see on the street.

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a progressive activist who runs the watchdog arm of the city government, backed that bill, not at all shocking given his history of stoking anti-cop sentiment during 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in the city. Willaims raked in $184,800 from taxpayers last year.

When police do make arrests, oftentimes a District Attorney won’t prosecute if they’re anywhere other than Staten Island. DAs in the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn have effectively rewritten the city’s laws on their own.

“If you’re interested in stealing a car, the absolute best place to do it in New York City is in the Bronx,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said recently, referring to Bronx DA Darcel Clark. “Why? Because chances are good that you’ll only be charged with misdemeanor criminal possession of stolen property and then sent on your way.”

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg decided in 2022 to no longer charge people for marijuana misdemeanors, including selling more than three ounces. He also stopped charging for not paying public transportation fare, trespassing except a fourth degree stalking charge, resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration in certain cases, and prostitution. Bragg, who gained brief fame in his attempt to prosecute President Trump, collects $232,600 from taxpayers.

Queens DA Melinda Katz and Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez stopped prosecuting prostitution and Gonzalez stopped prosecuting possession of excessive amounts of cannabis. Like Bragg, they each make $232,600 per year.

NYC Comptroller Brad Lander, who ran against Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and eight others in the June democratic primary for mayor, received 11% of votes. His latest attempt to get some good press with progressives included purposely getting arrested by ICE agents while trying to help an immigrant escape arrest at a courthouse — with lots of reporters present.

He and Mamdani brokered a cross-endorsement agreement that had Lander on the election-night stage with Mamdani as he celebrated his primary win.

Lander, as formal a Mamdani backer as can be, makes $209,050 from taxpayers. But in overseeing the city’s budget and pension funds, he’s made ideology a priority and come up relatively short for retirees.

According to City Journal:

Since Lander took on the role in 2022, the pension funds have returned less than 3 percent annually—during one of the strongest bull markets in living memory.

He moved more funds into investments that fulfilled ESG standards, divested from fossil fuels, diverted money into local affordable-housing projects, and has chosen not to reinvest in Israeli bonds. No clear economic justification exists for any of these decisions.

It’s not just in New York City where radical policies take hold.

Statewide, members of the New York State Legislature not only voted in 2019 for ending the use of cash bail and pre-trial detention for many cases, they gave themselves a 29% pay raise in December 2022.

For comparison, NYPD recruits start at just over $60,000, working in a city filled with elected officials who keep making the job less and less attractive. While cops can retire on much higher pay, many never get there, leaving for greener pastures with better pay and where officials have the backs of police officers.

The $1.2 billion spent on mandatory overtime last fiscal year represents 17% of the total police payroll. “Other” pay represents another 12%.

So while Mamdani says he won’t cut the police budget, all his proposals look an awful lot like cuts: slashing overtime and refusing to add to the police headcount means a force already stretched thin will have to do more with less.

Salaries Of Radical NY Officials

*Was $110,000 in 2019 when they passed the bail reform bill. Members gave themselves a 29% pay raise in December 2022.