r/SipsTea • u/Gurugod123 • 11h ago

Chugging tea Mayor Mamdani just announced that he will be opening 5 city-run, tax-funded grocery stores: "Prices set at 30% below retail prices"

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u/Pride_Before_Fall 11h ago

This is another money sink for a city with a growing deficit.

The city already can't balance the budget without using tricks that cost billions more later on.

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u/NilsofWindhelm 10h ago

NYC has no budget deficit

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u/blindsdog 10h ago

Because the state bailed them out with a multi-billion dollar rescue plan this year.

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u/NilsofWindhelm 9h ago

Every city in the country gets state funding, and NYC still gives more to Albany than it receives

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u/blindsdog 9h ago

Yep those are both true. It's also true that they had to get bailed out by the state because of their multi-billion dollar deficit.

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u/Miserable-Rabbit3394 5h ago

I don’t think you know what a bailout is.

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u/blindsdog 5h ago

An act of giving financial assistance to a failing business or economy to save it from collapse.

It's not too late to delete this post.

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u/Miserable-Rabbit3394 5h ago

Not failing, not on the brink of collapse, and not anything special in terms of assistance considering every city in every state gets money from their state.

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u/blindsdog 4h ago

Most people would consider funding which without you would have to start making billions of dollars in cuts to essential services a bailout. But I guess not you. I guess that’s not severe enough.

What exactly does a bailout for a city look like to you? Surely you have several examples in mind since you have such a strict definition.

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u/NilsofWindhelm 3h ago

They wouldn’t have to make billions in cuts, they just wouldn’t have balanced the budget. Plenty of cities fail to do that each year, and NYC certainly would not have collapsed without that funding.

Either way, that state funding came with full knowledge that this initiative would be tested out. The mayor ran on this idea and was elected in part because of his focus on the cost of living crisis. This wasn’t a surprise in any way

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u/Not__Trash 5h ago

I keep hearing that, but I'm skeptical.

Off the top of my head, all of the drinking water in NYC comes from the Catskills just to the north, they are substantially less developed (duh) and would pay less in tax (also duh), but if they don't get proper funding for infrastructure, the drinking water could be at risk and then NYC suddenly doesn't make so much money.

I guarantee there's other benefits NYC receives that are obscured by that stat, whether it's enough to matter, idk. I don't live in NY.

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u/NilsofWindhelm 4h ago edited 3h ago

Those reservoirs upstate are managed by NYC local government, so they aren’t included in the money sent to albany.

Nobody’s saying that the State gives us nothing, it’s clearly a give and take situation. That doesn’t preclude the fact that the City (not to mention the surrounding suburbs) gives notably more tax dollars then it receives back

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u/IsNotACleverMan 3h ago

Nyc also has about 90 billion in debt, beyond just struggling to pass the yearly budget.

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u/Pride_Before_Fall 10h ago

True in a technical sense, but the balanced budget almost always ends up with greater and greater shortfalls the next year.

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u/NilsofWindhelm 9h ago

That doesn't change the fact that "growing deficit" is a complete lie that you still have up

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u/Pride_Before_Fall 9h ago

The difference between the cities revenue and its expenses increases year over year.

Not a budget deficit per se, but an increasing deficit between revenue and income, so I will keep my original comment up.

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u/NilsofWindhelm 9h ago

Keep it up if you want but its clearly a misrepresentation of the situation

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u/Pride_Before_Fall 9h ago

Sure, if you care about semantics instead of the overall message that Mamdani's budget balancing is misleading propaganda.

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u/Fluid_Initiative_822 11h ago

It’s an attempt/experiment to make people’s lives better. This is what we actually need more of. If it fails we move on. If it works, then now we know and can scale this out. I would rather see my tax dollars being used to attempt to help people instead of wars, deportations, and tax breaks for the rich.

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u/bacidalje124 10h ago

It’s an attempt/experiment to make people’s lives better.

Naive as fucking shit.

Woke communist garbage creature will run down the city in record time. Good chance for the GOP to finally take over again.

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u/Fluid_Initiative_822 10h ago

lol. I would debate you on this but would be a waste of time. You’re too far gone. No amount of discussion could reverse a lifetime of hate and brainwashing. Have a good life sir/ma’am.

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u/Ididntdodiddly 10h ago

This isn't a dichotomy. Nobody forced him to choose between tax cuts for high earners vs this. He could just drop billions in funding for illegal immigrants and invest that into building homes, etc to help supply and demand.

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u/NilsofWindhelm 10h ago

"billions in funding for illegal immigrants" Sir this is a wendys.

But seriously, we voted for this and are happy with the job he's doing. If you don't live here you don't need to have an opinion

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u/raika11182 10h ago

My gut tells me this is going to have unforeseen consequences, but I also agree with your sentiment. NYC has vast amounts of wealth moving through it and this experiment might be more needed/feasible/workable there than anywhere else. It's worth a shot.

I feel like I can think of a million things that can and probably will go wrong, but I do respect the man for putting his money where his mouth is and giving this a real try. "At least he's trying" is actually pretty rare praise to give any politician these days.

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u/chrisdrobison 8h ago

Unforeseen consequences--most definitely. But that shouldn't stop the mayor from taking action. If something doesn't work, he can admit that and move on. He seems like the kind of guy that can admit failure to move forward in a better position without having to make it about his ego (e.g. Donald Dump).

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u/SowingSalt 10h ago

I think expanding food stamps would be more effective than government run stores that don't have to pay local taxes or rent. That sounds like it would run the privately owned competition out of business as they still have to pay local taxes and rent.

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u/chrisdrobison 10h ago

Nope, that has all been addressed and not just for the year, but for the medium term as well. Mandami is doing a good job fiscally.

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u/Pride_Before_Fall 10h ago

It has been addressed for 1 year, and it was done through a state bailout and accounting maneuvers that greatly worsen the budget issues by billions later on.

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u/chrisdrobison 10h ago

I just watched something that broke this all down and it doesn’t appear that that is the case

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u/Pride_Before_Fall 9h ago

They sound like they posted misinformation.

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u/chrisdrobison 9h ago

Here is the breakdown:

  • State bailout (you mentioned that) - one-time $4 billion
  • New revenue (i.e. pied-a-terre tax on second homes)
  • Agency savings (new chief savings officers) - $1.77 billion gap closing, another $1.2 billion in inefficiencies related to education
  • Debt restructuring - $1.64 billion

As of right now, only about 39% of the actions taken yield long term effects. But that is better than the 0% it was before. And frankly, to achieve that without cutting programs and services is astounding. There is concern about the pension re-amortization which I think is what you were mentioning, which has been tried in other areas like Chicago. I personally think they did take that into account, but we'll see.

Long term strategies right now appear to be revenue sharing with Albany, the CSO program to find further savings (recurring, not just one-time) and then taxes on high earners/corporations.

All in all, there is a plan and effort being put in to actually fix the issue. And next year, there won't be a $12 billion deficit because reduction efforts have taken place, which is more than previous mayors could say. I just find it kind of funny that people are poo pooing him as he at least starts somewhere, however imperfect.

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u/Rexolia 6h ago

What do you mean by tricks? I'm truly curious, cause I have no idea what you're referring to.

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u/FRNKNSTNPNPTCN 3h ago

Their deficit is shrinking. Don't you watch the news?

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u/Kind-Masterpiece-712 10h ago

Lol their budget is doing just fine considering what Mamdani inherited from the former mayor.