New York's special interests will eat Zohran Mamdani for lunch

New York Post

2 days ago

For all his radicalism, Zohran Mamdani's program is often as vaporous as steam wafting from a Midtown manhole.
It's a lot more about vibes than about delivering real change.
His city-owned grocery store scheme, for starters, is almost entirely symbolic — not any real answer to the price-gouging he and his fans pretends is common at privately owned markets.
The initial plan is only for one city store in each borough: That literally can't make any difference for most New Yorkers.
And those five stores can't even be a meaningful test because it'd be a disaster for the new mayor if any of the stores failed.
Tellingly, Mamdani brags that Chicago has already done a 'feasibility study' for city-owned groceries.
Problem is, no one can read the Chicago analysis, because city leaders shelved it — almost certainly because they discovered that municipal-owned supermarkets have no chance of success.
Contrary to what the hipster socialists imagine, groceries' profit margins are not rich but as thin as deli-sliced ham: Keeping the store going requires obsessive management — not the casual oversight that's given the world the phrase 'good enough for government work.'
Of course, even Mamdani's plans to finance his stores is as airy as coffee-cart bagels: He said he'd tap the $140 million that the city already gives away to corporate grocery chains as a subsidy — except his crack crew misread the facts on the city's 'Food Retail Expansion to Support Health' program.
That $140 million, it turns out, is how how much private store owners invested in the local economy after getting much smaller tax breaks, not city outlays a mayor could redirect.
The socialist's confusion here recalls fellow DSAer Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's celebration when Amazon pulled out of the plan to build a major headquarters in Queens: This freed up $3 billion that New York could spend on schools instead of a corporate giveaway, she exulted.
But no: The massive e-tailer had simply been promised (just like many other companies) tax breaks if it created so many jobs; with the deal dead, Amazon wouldn't generate any income for the state to hold off on taxing.
Zeroed-out Zohran must have the same math tutor as AOC, because zilch is how much the city has on hand to pay for his food pantries posing as groceries.
Of course, Mamdani actually got the funding for another of his pilot-project schemes — then lost it because he couldn't even cooperate with fellow Democrats.
Ending fares on MTA buses is one of his big ideas for making NYC 'affordable'; he helped author a one-year experiment in fare-free buses on five routes in 2024 — only to see Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie quietly can the next year's funding after Mamdani refused to vote to pass the state budget.
Reminder: Much of Mamdani's program — starting with getting $10 billion to cover many initiatives by hiking taxes on the rich — depends on getting Albany's OK, and he's going to need Heastie's enthusiastic support since Gov. Kathy Hochul has already said 'no go!'
How will Heastie fight for a guy he already sees as a lightweight?
Look: New York politics, state and city, is packed with deeply connected special interests — with public-sector outfits (unions, massive nonprofits) often more ruthless than the real-estate lobby and other private-sector players.
Voters' revulsion at that corruption is a big reason Mamdani won the primary, but this crew will eat the pretty boy for lunch while he's busy filming his next viral YouTube.