New York's Budget Reckoning

We've invited him to come on the show today to discuss his new essay, "The Bill Comes Due," which details New York City's budget dilemmas and the fiscal challenges facing its next mayor.

Steve's essay is featured in our new special issue, called New York City Reborn, which we've just released.

Brian Anderson: Now, there's a considerable amount of money in the stimulus, the new federal stimulus bill that will be sent to States and cities across the country, including New York City, in effect to, kind of, a bail out of the city's current situation.

If the city's economy, and there's a lot of uncertainty here, doesn't bounce back even to the pre pandemic levels, and there are reasons to think that might be the case, including remote work and these lawsuits that are going on from other States, saying, "You have to stop taxing our workers like in New Jersey and Connecticut because they're no longer working in your city, they're working remotely anymore." Because of things like that, the next mayor could face significant budget problems, which were exacerbated by the fact that de Blasio increased the budget so much.

Steven Malanga: Well, first of all, perversely, one of the good outcomes of the Biden stimulus is, I think that it mutes some of that discussion, even though there are a lot of far left progressives, both in the New York State legislature and in New York City Council, who would like to tax anyway, just because it's fun.

Needless to say, caution and pro growth strategies, caution and spending, and pro growth, pro development strategies, pro economic development strategies are the things that are in order right now, but this is New York City we're talking about, and the leadership there doesn't always act as if New York is one of the financial capitals of the world, which of course it is.

I would say, if they're really emerges a crisis in the next administration because the city does not bounce back, I think I would advise the next mayor to consider invoking that board and getting some of these changes that the unions have been able to resist, because New York State law basically makes it hard to reform and reduce any kind of benefit once you've given it in a place like New York City.
 

https://www.city-journal.org/new-yorks-budget-reckoning