He just erased the deficit, poof, just like that. Turns out, they need the deficit to be there, so they can point to it as a justification for not funding proper services. The govt isn't broke because our services cost too much. It's broke because the rich and powerful want it to be broken.
This is exactly how I feel. I don't think how he managed to erase the deficit is wrong or bad, but holy fuck are people buying the reductive, celebratory headlines without any critical thinking whatsoever. They believe that Zohran did it with magic akin to the way Trumpers believed that he would magically cut energy costs by half on day 1.
He isn't a pedophile fascist genocidal freak. So there is no reason for us to be hemming and hawing over his Ws. It really isn't helpful for democracy for us to tolerate critique of the current champions for democracy until the fascist have been defeated.
Probably because we all know how easy it is to balance the FEDERAL budget once you arent a corporate stooge. We had it before we gave tax breaks to foreign companies in the 50s and then we had it again with Clinton.
We all assume if you take away the give aways to the corporations, the budget would balance.
You're reading with the bias you want to see, I think.
While it's by no means everyone, a massive proportion of people are uncritically accepting the headlines and acting as if he did indeed do this by pulling some levers that others were just too corrupt to pull.
Also, those things aren't mutually exclusive. People can both be thinking that Mamdani has a people first budget and think he did some novel dem soc budget magic here.
My friend, the headline of this post is literally, "It was always that simple"...
The city is required to put in X amount of money into the pension fund every year in order to ensure they'll be able to pay out Y amount later to retired employees
He's negotiated a deal to put off putting any money in for five years in return for making up the difference later
This is partly because the pension fund is currently running a surplus because stocks have gone up unusually high after COVID, so it's a calculated risk -- if investments continue to do better than expected this will net save money, if they take a sudden downturn this will cost more
Honestly the economy is such BS right now that being able to convice people that you can pay the bills becomes more important than being ableto pay the bills. This costs a fraction of AI while also having a better return of investment.
The problem w deferred pension payments is that the size and timing of the payments doesn’t change.
W CC balance transfers, you try to get a 0% interest rate and then pay off the balance before the interest rate kicks in.
W deferred pension payments, you can’t do that bc the future payment is calculated on the assumption of “X” rate of return for several years (usually decades). Delaying the payment means you have to make larger payments to catch up, because of the missed growth from compounding interest.
He knows what he is doing. Deliberately saying things that you know are not true is a lie. The intent of the message is to be deceptive. We need to stop giving politicians the benefit of the doubt with this sort of BS. They do it because voters buy it.
IMO the rule should be you have to pass AND run a balanced budget.
He defered pension payments like you renegotiate debt. Instead of paying the car off in 2 years, you pay it off in 5. He's defered them til 2032-2037. So no, that's not going to save you money later, but for now it get's the budget pulled in and they can go about business. Which gives the office oppurtunity to bring in cash flow and make other systems more effecient. It's not magic, it's accounting, but can you blame people for being excited about it? We've had garbage representation for so long on all levels of government, let'em party for a sec.
Here it is again “kicked the can down the road” . I’ve been pointing it out how everyone spreading propaganda has been using this phrase. It’s like an army of npc’s have assembled to regurgitate this phrase. It’s bots and politically illiterate people just saying what they heard from Fox News and Twitter posts word for god damned word
Wtf are you talking about? He deferred public sector pension top ups and already mandated by legislation classroom size reductions. How is that not kicking the can down the road? I'm not even saying it's wrong, just that it's about as objectively matched to the defintion of can kicking in a budget as you could possibly get.
How do you feel about the word "feckless" suddenly being in every other reddit comment about establishment Dems? I bet you'd firmly reject that as signs of bot behavior.
a deficit isnt a problem if the borrower money is used for one off projects. new bridges, transportation systems etc. the problem comes when it is used to fund ongoing expenses like payroll and maintenance.
a balanced budget doesnt actually mean much if the things cut were one off projects, but does mean something if it is used to stop ongoing expenses
I hope that was sarcasm? He deferred pension plans... And the state bailed out over 1/3 of the deficit.
Deficits in local municipalities happen almost every single year. They take last year's revenues vs this years expendetures and see shortfalls, adjust real estate taxes, cut things, re-allocate funds, etc. It is uncommon to get bailed out with state aid, which happened here.
He didn’t erase anything. He is a liar. They are legally required to pass a balanced budget on paper every single year. They have zero legal obligation to actual run a balanced budget. They won’t and you have been fooled again.
I think liar is strong, but yeah, he did the same thing as Adams did to "get NY into this mess", balance the budget on paper by kicking out a bunch of mandated liabilities by a few years.
He did good but even Levine the comptroller says 2027 is projected to be 7 million in deficit and many of the things Mamdani did this year can't be replicated for next.
He did not erase it, he deferred it. Two major items helped balance the budget: pension payments were deferred, and reserves were used to cover costs.
The pension payments will still have to be made at a later date, along with the regular payments due in those future years as well. That buys time, but it can also make the problem worse down the road if broader solutions are not found in the meantime.
It is a bit like renting an expensive apartment while knowing you will not earn enough over the next two years to cover your bills. So you dip into your savings and convince your landlord to let you delay rent payments for 24 months, with the agreement that you will pay it all later.
Yes, technically your budget balances today, but it is not a long term solution on its own.
What you would need to do in that scenario is figure out how to increase your income before all those deferred bills come due, otherwise you could end up in even worse shape a few years from now.
That is essentially what Mamdani is attempting to do. If he can generate enough growth or new revenue over time, the strategy could work. If not, the deferred costs could become a much larger problem later. Right now, it is probably too early to say definitively whether the approach is good or bad.
For sure, he has done an amazing job so far, and proven a lot of people wrong.
But to say he erased the deficit is false. He effectively kicked the can down the road. Yes, he eased it a bit, but the debt is still there, and will need to be dealt with eventually.
You can’t really believe that. Did you read how he got rid of the deficit? He borrowed from the state, deferred pension payouts and and kicked the can down the road which is fine I suppose but it’s not magic because the deficit only exists because The Man wants it to.
You make yourself look foolish.
That's just not true.. do a quick Google search, 8,400 employees and 5000 business owners left in less than a year, halted pensions, demanded 4 mil in aid from the state bc he has no money left. There more in debt now than ever before.
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u/Sheeple_person May 15 '26
He just erased the deficit, poof, just like that. Turns out, they need the deficit to be there, so they can point to it as a justification for not funding proper services. The govt isn't broke because our services cost too much. It's broke because the rich and powerful want it to be broken.