The city and state's fiscal pain just got real —and it was all so avoidable
The Citizens Budget Commission is flagging both the city and state's massive budgets, slamming them as 'unaffordable and unprepared' in light of federal funding cuts and a possible economic slowdown down the road.
With passage of President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which aims to (slightly) curb the growth of federal outlays, including aid to New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul is directing state agencies to cut $750 million from their budgets.
When folks gripe, she'll just point her finger at Trump. Convenient, no? But about reckless and dishonest as can be.
And she'll still have to find another $3 billion — and that's assuming no further cuts from Washington in the short term and an economy that remains robust.
Plus, the long-term structural gap, CBC says, is now a monstrous $22 billion.
It was all sadly predictable, but Hochul and state lawmakers nonetheless decided to blithely run up the tab — to a whopping quarter of a trillion dollars–plus — figuring they can blame the GOP when they have to make cuts or raise taxes.
Take health care: Lawmakers boosted spending on it by 17%, even as the Empire Center's Bill Hammond predicted federal Medicaid cuts would shift over $3.3 billion in costs to the state.
In April, budget expert E.J. McMahon slapped Hochul and the Legislature for 'whistling in the dark' instead of anticipating likely changes to the state's 'nearly out-of-control Medicaid program.'
Now the gov's budget director won't rule out raising taxes, even though Hochul vowed she wouldn't.
The CBC instead urges to keep her promise and instead shred her $2 billion 'inflation reduction checks' (i.e., reelection bribes), for starters.
The group also called out the city's $116 billion spendapalooza and hit both Albany and City Hall for not squirreling away enough reserves.
Whoever become mayor in November, it noted, will have to fill a $6 billon to $8 billion budget gap in just 16 days of taking office.
It also ripped mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani's planned tax hikes to cover his ludicrous plans for $10 billion in new outlays. He'd be setting a record for irresponsibility.
New Yorkers are now sure to be hit with some pain, whether it's spending cuts or tax hikes.
The pols will try to shift blame, of course, but the public wouldn't be in this mess if their leaders had acted like adults from the start.
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Yahoo
6 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Analysis-Out-gunned Europe accepts least-worst US trade deal
By Mark John LONDON (Reuters) -In the end, Europe found it lacked the leverage to pull Donald Trump's America into a trade pact on its terms and so has signed up to a deal it can just about stomach - albeit one that is clearly skewed in the U.S.'s favour. As such, Sunday's agreement on a blanket 15% tariff after a months-long stand-off is a reality check on the aspirations of the 27-country European Union to become an economic power able to stand up to the likes of the United States or China. The cold shower is all the more bracing given that the EU has long portrayed itself as an export superpower and champion of rules-based commerce for the benefit both of its own soft power and the global economy as a whole. For sure, the new tariff that will now be applied is a lot more digestible than the 30% "reciprocal" tariff which Trump threatened to invoke in a few days. While it should ensure Europe avoids recession, it will likely keep its economy in the doldrums: it sits somewhere between two tariff scenarios the European Central Bank last month forecast would mean 0.5-0.9% economic growth this year compared to just over 1% in a trade tension-free environment. But this is nonetheless a landing point that would have been scarcely imaginable only months ago in the pre-Trump 2.0 era, when the EU along with much of the world could count on U.S. tariffs averaging out at around 1.5%. Even when Britain agreed a baseline tariff of 10% with the United States back in May, EU officials were adamant they could do better and - convinced the bloc had the economic heft to square up to Trump - pushed for a "zero-for-zero" tariff pact. It took a few weeks of fruitless talks with their U.S. counterparts for the Europeans to accept that 10% was the best they could get and a few weeks more to take the same 15% baseline which the United States agreed with Japan last week. "The EU does not have more leverage than the U.S., and the Trump administration is not rushing things," said one senior official in a European capital who was being briefed on last week's negotiations as they closed in around the 15% level. That official and others pointed to the pressure from Europe's export-oriented businesses to clinch a deal and so ease the levels of uncertainty starting to hit businesses from Finland's Nokia to Swedish steelmaker SSAB. "We were dealt a bad hand. This deal is the best possible play under the circumstances," said one EU diplomat. "Recent months have clearly shown how damaging uncertainty in global trade is for European businesses." NOW WHAT? That imbalance - or what the trade negotiators have been calling "asymmetry" - is manifest in the final deal. Not only is it expected that the EU will now call off any retaliation and remain open to U.S. goods on existing terms, but it has also pledged $600 billion of investment in the United States. The time-frame for that remains undefined, as do other details of the accord for now. As talks unfolded, it became clear that the EU came to the conclusion it had more to lose from all-out confrontation. The retaliatory measures it threatened totalled some 93 billion euros - less than half its U.S. goods trade surplus of nearly 200 billion euros. True, a growing number of EU capitals were also ready to envisage wide-ranging anti-coercion measures that would have allowed the bloc to target the services trade in which the United States had a surplus of some $75 billion last year. But even then, there was no clear majority for targeting the U.S. digital services which European citizens enjoy and for which there are scant homegrown alternatives - from Netflix to Uber to Microsoft cloud services. It remains to be seen whether this will encourage European leaders to accelerate the economic reforms and diversification of trading allies to which they have long paid lip service but which have been held back by national divisions. Describing the deal as a painful compromise that was an "existential threat" for many of its members, Germany's BGA wholesale and export association said it was time for Europe to reduce its reliance on its biggest trading partner. "Let's look on the past months as a wake-up call," said BGA President Dirk Jandura. "Europe must now prepare itself strategically for the future - we need new trade deals with the biggest industrial powers of the world." (Additional reporting by Jan Strupczewski in Brussels; Christian Kraemer and Maria Martinez in Berlin; Writing by Mark John; Editing by Nick Zieminski) Sign in to access your portfolio
New York Post
8 minutes ago
- New York Post
NY Republicans tie Dem opponents to Zohran Mamdani: 'They're Mamdani Democrats!'
Gleeful Republicans will make socialist Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani a key campaign issue as they pound 'Mamdani Democrats' running for election across the state, party insiders said. GOP officials will tie Mamdani to Democrat candidates from Long Island to upstate, with the idea the party will answer for the nomination in more moderate areas such as Staten Island, Nassau and Suffolk — and even places like Binghamton, The Post has learned. 'If there was ever any doubt that our city is headed in the wrong direction, this past Democratic mayoral primary election gave people their answer,' Staten Island Republican chairman Michael Tannousis said, noting Mamdani will be a campaign point even in judge races. 3 Republican candidates across New York state will attempt to tie their opponents to New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, party insiders told The Post. Getty Images 'Zohran Mamdani is the official nominee of the Staten Island Democratic Party,' he added. 'In November, Staten Island voters will have a choice: whether they will vote for Zohran Mamdani's socialist Democratic Party or the Republican candidates they trust.' Republican nominee Remy Smith, a Housing Court judge, was set to kick off her campaign Sunday against Democrat attorney Matthew Santamauro for a civil court seat on the island. Tannousis said that the Democrat is running on 'the Mamdani ticket.' Mamdani's name will 'absolutely' be used as a weapon against Democrats in Suffolk County, where Republican District Attorney Ray Tierney is up for re-election and 18 county legislative seats are up for grabs, the GOP chairman said. 'The Democratic Party has anointed a communist as the face of the party,' party chairman Jesse Garcia said. 'hey've embraced his policy of defunding the police, antisemitism and higher taxes. Not one Democrat in Suffolk County has denounced Mamdani. 'Our policies are more in tune with Suffolk voters,' Garcia claimed. 'We are going to compare our Republican candidates' records of making Suffolk safer and affordable compared to the Mamdani Democrats' that advocate communism, loss of property rights, antisemitic views, higher taxes and defund the police.' 3 New York Republicans hope that Mamdani will hurt Democrats in more moderate areas like Long Island or upstate. Paul Martinka Mamdani identifies himself as a democratic socialist but he has come under fire for declaring in a resurfaced clip that one of his goals is 'seizing the means of production' — which critics note reeks of the approach of communist regimes. Meanwhile, Republicans in Nassau County will claim that Democrats there share the 'dangerous and reckless Mamdani agenda,' said Nassau GOP chairman Joe Cairo. There are dozens of county, town and village seats up for election in November. The headliner countywide races include Republicans seeking re-election — County Executive Bruce Blakeman Bruce Blakeman, DA Anne Donnelly and Comptroller Elaine Phillips. Cairo called Mamdani and extreme socialist who will destroy the city's economy and make 'Gotham a lawless haven for criminals.' 'Sadly, Zohran Mamdani shares more than a political party line with his Long Island Democrats – he shares a corrosive and dangerous agenda that embraces defunding the police, cashless bail, closing jails, and soaring taxes,' Cairo said. 'Every Nassau County Republican candidate on the ballot — from county legislators to town supervisors – stand firmly against the out-of-touch priorities of Zohran Mamdani and the Democrat candidates in Nassau County who clearly share the dangerous and reckless Mamdani Agenda.' Mamdani's earth-shattering election win in last month's crowded Democratic primary has made him the immediate frontrunner to become New York's next mayor — but the win has not gone unnoticed by upstate Republicans, either. 'We will be ready to strike once voters are educated about Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani is out of touch with the voters here,' said Broome County Republican Party Benji Federman, which includes the city of Binghamton. Binghamton Republican Mayor Jared Kraham is running for re-election in the Democratic-leaning city against Miles Burnett. Start and end your day informed with our newsletters Morning Report and Evening Update: Your source for today's top stories Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters The upstate city is part of the economically struggling Southern Tier that borders Pennsylvania and higher taxes that Mamdani is proposing for the Big Apple are out of sync with the region, the GOP leader said. Federman said he even has liberal friends in Williamsburg, Brooklyn who are terrified of a Mamdani mayoralty. 'Proposals to raise corporate taxes and taxes on the rich are not popular in Williamsburg and not popular in the Southern Tier,' he said. 3 The Post's coverage of Mamdani's meeting with city business leaders. State Democratic Party chairman Jay Jacobs said the GOP scare tactics of trying to make Mamdani the bogeyman won't work, especially when they have to defend President Trump's hardline policies. 'Typical Republican distraction. Should we tie every Nassau Republican to that nut, Marjorie Taylor Green [Georgia congresswoman] or the assorted antisemites that Trump regularly socializes with?' said Jacobs, also the Nassau County Democratic leader. 'We will do fine just tying them to that Big Ugly Bill that will cause health insurance rates to go through the roof,' added Jacobs, referring to the tax and spending bill approved by Trump and the Republican-led Congress. Jacobs has not endorsed Mamdani. Neither have Senate Democratic Minority leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both Brooklynites. Mamdani, who is vacationing in his native Uganda, will face Republican Curtis Sliwa and three independents in the November election. Current Mayor Eric Adams, ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and attorney Jim Walden will each appear on city election ballots on minor party lines. The Mamdani campaign had no immediate comment.
NBC News
9 minutes ago
- NBC News
Rep. Ralph Norman announces bid for South Carolina governor
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