We are certain that we were not alone in our confusion over Zohran Mamdani’s “affordability crisis” campaign theme. In true radical, Alice in Wonderland, leftist mode, he talks about starting to provide New Yorkers municipal services – like bus transportation – free of charge and imposing more artificial limits and mandates on government and the free market.
Yet, in an eminently common-sense editorial last Monday, The Wall Street Journal pointed out that his message is dripping with irony. According to the Journal, his “affordability crisis,” if real, would plainly be the result of failed Democratic and progressive governance.
Thus, rent control and limits on evictions have caused landlords to take tens of thousands of apartments off the market. A higher minimum wage raised the cost of food and other basics. Climate restrictions and mandates have raised energy costs.
Predictably, Mamdani’s answer to the question of where the money to pay for all of this largesse will come from will continue to be ever-higher taxes, thus feeding the non-affordability spiral. So, nothing really new here.
But there is a new twist.
We are now in the world of congestion pricing. And given Governor Hochul’s recent toying with the amount of the fee and when it would start so as not to jeopardize the prospects of Democratic candidates for public office, the congestion pricing program has all of the indicia of an incipient “cash cow.”
So Mamdani could perhaps be forgiven for licking his chops in anticipation of getting in on some of it. However, should he win in November, Gov. Hochul will have a special responsibility to stop the madness. Indeed, President Trump has already pushed back and declared that he is not inclined to support federal funding for Mamdani’s sort of profligacy.
