New York, already the most highly taxed combined city and state in the nation, can ill afford to force out businesses and high-income residents who cover the lion's share of tax revenues that provide vital livelihoods and services for everyone else.
But that's a costly certainty that will result from big tax and spend vows of leading mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani including free buses, free babysitting, and $100 billion for free apartments.
And don't forget to throw in rent freezes which will bankrupt small landlords and send large ones packing, then evacuating to, friendlier economic climes.
The state economy is sorely hurting too, it now facing a massive $36 billion budget gap.
From 2010 to 2022, New York state's share of taxpayers with more than $1 million in federal adjusted gross income shrunk by almost a third — from 12.7% to 8.7%, while the city's share also fell from 6.5% to 4.2%.
New York's loss was other states' gains, particularly Florida, Texas, and even California.
Thanks to inflation, the gross number of million-plus earners in New York grew, but less than it tripled in Texas and quadrupled in Florida.
As CBC* warns, "Had New York State and City had the same share of millionaires in 2022 as they did in 2010, the State would have received $10.7 billion more" in personal-income-tax revenue, and "the City $2.5 billion more. More millionaires mean more PIT revenue." (*Citizens Budget Committee)
Although millionaires make up of less than 1% of the State’s and City’s resident taxpayers, they account for 44% of Albany’s income-tax revenue, and 40% of the city’s.
Nevertheless, Mamdani wants to raise taxes on the rich and on businesses even higher, while much of the legislature agrees.
Mamdani doesn't even believe billionaires should even exist, and favors raising the city's top income tax on the wealthy by half, many who can readily afford to move and take their money with them.
Meanwhile, Mamdami's proposed rent freeze will add additional burdens on Gotham landlords, particularly small mom and pop properties many of whom who are presently losing money and can't cover existing bank notes.
Rent freezes are disincentives for revenue-strapped landlords to renovate older properties to modern standards, degrading the overall quality of housing stock and neighborhood real estate values with derelict structures that will attract criminal uses and rodents.
Since the pandemic, higher inflation and steeper interest rates have depleted capital needed to provide maintenance made even worse by delayed revitalization of spaces due to stalled city-issued work permits which can take months to acquire.
Apartment buildings with at least six units can be subject to the city's rent-stabilization laws, also making them tougher to sell, prompting owners to cut prices.
According to Ariel Property Advisors, purchases on buildings with at least 75% rent-stabilized units totaled $751 million in 2024, down more than 70% from 2018.
Sales for New York City's rent-stabilized multifamily properties with 10 or more units have declined since 2019, when rent laws restricted many owners looking to raise rents on over one million rent-stabilized apartments.
Larger landlords owning many apartment buildings may have advantages of greater financial flexibility through substantial investment funds and abilities to compensate vacancy losses across larger numbers of filled units.
Landlords that rent to low-income tenants are up against costly problems of having units tied up by occupants who pay late or never while imposing expensive legal eviction demands without remuneration for back payments.
A new Good Cause Eviction law makes removals of indigent and dead-beat tenants even more difficult.
Notably, not all "rent stabilized" tenants are financially needy.
Take, for example, the $2,300 a month one-bedroom apartment in Astoria, Queens rented by mayoral candidate Mandani who earns a $142,000 New York assemblyman salary while advocating abolishment of private property ownership in favor of government controlled housing and grocery markets.
A Mamdani Socialist cum Marxist election win of America’s largest city and economic Wall Street capitol would be a spectacularly transformational and costly national wakeup call.
Many New Yorkers already recognize this dilemma, with an August AARP/Gotham Polling survey finding that 42% of that voting population hold a very unfavorable view of him, and according to a Siena College poll, an erven higher 50% of neighboring suburban voters sharing a similar negative view.
Responding to a journalist question regarding what he thought about a prospective Mamdani victory, President Trump said, "I'd prefer not to have a communist mayor of New York City, and you now, that's what he is based on his policies, if you look at his statements in the past."
Obviously referring to Mayor Eric Adams and Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa, Trump added, "And so, I would like to see two people drop out, and have it be one-on-one, and I think that’s a race that could be won" (by less radical former Democrat New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo).
Threatening to fight back against the president's opposition, Mamdani has declared when elected, "My administration will be Donald Trump's worst nightmare."
He's too modest.
If elected, Zohran Mamdani will be New York's worst nightmare, and let's all hope they wake up in time.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.