DeSantis Exposes NYC’s Budget Mess

Adriana Stone 0 1 min read

DeSantis Exposes NYC’s Budget Mess

New York City is in trouble. The new Democratic Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani just rolled out a preliminary budget and the headline is a $5.4 billion shortfall. That’s the number he highlighted when he announced the plan.

“Today, I’m releasing the City’s preliminary budget. After years of fiscal mismanagement, we’re staring at a $5.4 billion budget gap — and two paths.

One: Albany can raise taxes on the ultra-wealthy and the most profitable corporations and address the fiscal imbalance between our city and state.

The other, a last resort: balance the budget on the backs of working people using the only tools at the City’s disposal.

The first path matches a structural crisis with a sustainable and fair solution. I know where I stand.

New Yorkers voted for bold change and competent leadership. We will deliver both, and we look forward to partnering with Albany to protect working New Yorkers…”

That’s the mayor’s pitch. Raise taxes on the wealthy. Or hit working people. Sound familiar? It should. It’s the same playbook cities use when costs spike and priorities haven’t been fixed.

Ron DeSantis jumped in and gave a stark comparison. He pointed out that Florida’s entire state budget is smaller than what Mamdani is proposing for a single city. That’s a striking image. It forces you to ask a few blunt questions: How is so much money being spent? Are services getting better? Who’s really paying?

Here are the embeds that spelled it out on social media:

Think about scale. Florida serves 23+ million people. New York City has about 8 million. Yet NYC’s budget proposal clocks in higher than Florida’s whole state budget. More dollars per resident. More complexity. And still a gap.

That’s not just math. It’s a policy problem. If a city has massive revenue but still can’t balance the books, it’s time to rethink spending priorities. Private-sector voters and workers can’t be the fallback every budget season.

Mamdani can choose to hike property taxes. Or he can look for waste and inefficiency. Either way, people will feel the pain. Conservatives like DeSantis see this as proof that big-city spending needs tighter limits and clearer priorities. Democrats in Albany and City Hall see a chance to squeeze more from wealthy New Yorkers. Both sides will make a case. The real question is which side listens to taxpayers first.

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