Stop! Mamdanis plan is to tax New York INTO deep trouble

New York City government has plenty of revenue, with zero need for any of the tax hikes Mayor Zohran Mamdani is demanding; it could even pay for some of his ambitious plans — it just needs to be cut elsewhere: This is what budgeting means.The budget was an already fat $77 billion in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s last year; it’s now above $120 billion — up vastly more than inflation.Handed a prosperous local economy, Mayor Bill de Blasio went spend-crazy — then went hog-wild as the feds handed out tens of billions of “free money” during Covid.Coming out of the pandemic, then getting hit by the Biden migrant crisis, Mayor Eric Adams only found passing efficiencies even as the left-dominated City Council pushed new spending programs and the Legislature dumped new unfunded mandates on the city such as the ridiculous “class-size” law.And the new mayor only wants to add fresh spending — for all his demonization of Adams, he won’t point to a dime he’d cut of his predecessor’s programs (except, of course, from the NYPD).Moody’s sounded the alarm Wednesday: The debt-rating giant changed the city’s credit outlook from “stable” to “negative” — a warning that the city’s headed toward a lower credit rating, and thus higher borrowing costs.“The negative outlook reflects the emergence of sizable and persistent projected budget gaps that signal underlying structural imbalance and reduced financial flexibility,” Moody’s warned — a mess City Hall faces “despite New York City’s still favorable economic conditions.” That is: The private sector’s doing fine, but the public sector shows not a hint of restraint.Just an outrageous appetite.We can’t tax our way out of trouble, but we sure can tax our way into trouble.The private sector’s not guaranteed to keep growing: Steve Fulop, CEO of the Partnership for the City of New York, warns that the mayor’s tax-and-spend plans will push the “very, very fragile” local economy to th...