He just can’t help himself.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s doomsday fearmongering over the Big Apple’s budget to push his socialist tax-the-rich dream has even some Democratic City Council members fuming — the fledgling administration’s latest misstep after bungling the response to Winter Storm Fern.
The befuddlement was shared by Albany lawmakers, who bristled over Mamdani’s testimony Wednesday calling for a tax hike and assertions that New York City isn’t getting its fair share of funding.
“These six weeks have been a horrible mess,” one Dem council member moaned Thursday.
“With snow operations, with the safety of homeless New Yorkers during freezing weather, and now with the budget, Mayor Mamdani continues to show he doesn’t know how this works.”
Behind-the-scenes frustration over Mamdani’s claims that the city faces a massive budget crisis boiled over after the lefty mayor testified in Albany Wednesday in his inaugural “Tin Cup Day” — the annual ritual in which pols beg state lawmakers for budget money.
Hizzoner first told lawmakers that the projected $12 billion budget hole he warned New Yorkers about just two weeks before had been miraculously reduced to $7 billion.
Despite effectively finding $5 billion more in a matter of days, Mamdani still forged ahead with his big ask to raise income taxes on the city’s millionaires by 2%.
“There simply isn’t enough money that we wish there could be,” he claimed.
The increasingly suspect financial forecast, coupled with Mamdani’s stubborn insistence on soaking the wealthy, proved too much for City Council members across the political spectrum.
Many of Mamdani’s fellow Democrats argued he’s overplaying his hand as he and the City Council work together to craft a budget in the coming weeks
“The mayor should instill confidence in New Yorkers, but being off by 40% calls into question what message he’s trying to send,” another Democratic member said.
City Council Speaker Julie Menin on Thursday backhandedly mentioned the legislative body’s budget projections due in March will include Wall Street bonuses — a source of revenue that Mamdani’s team didn’t use when he released his dire forecast.
“I think it’s sad the budget dance is somewhat of a dance, which is unfortunate,” Menin, a Democrat, said.
“We want to get on the same page in terms of what some of these costs are going to be, what some of the investments are going to be, what some of the joint priorities are going to be.”
Councilman Phil Wong (D-Queens) likewise slyly dinged Mamdani for his budget math.
“New Yorkers deserve honest accounting, not shifting numbers, especially when hardworking taxpayers are footing the bill,” he said.
“Both sides of City Hall have a responsibility to take the budget seriously, safeguard every dollar, and focus on real solutions instead of political messaging.”
Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan) predicted the budget hole will shrink. She also said while her wealthy friends could pay more in taxes, she wanted to find a “middle ground” that didn’t scare them off.
“I don’t want is a California situation where you see people are moving from California to Florida,” she said.
While City Council Democrats obliquely questioned Mamdani’s math, Republicans outright accused him of cooking the books.
“I think the mayor miscalculated the impact that sounding the false alarm on the budget would have on his signature ‘tax the rich’ plan, and it hurt his credibility,” Minority Leader David Carr (R-Staten Island) said.
“It was the equivalent of screaming fire in a crowded theater when the popcorn machine was broken.”
Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) said Mamdani didn’t make a “simple mistake.”
“This is a textbook case of fearmongering to deliver on his (Democratic Socialists of America) campaign agenda,” she said.
“This was a purposeful, multi-billion dollar scare tactic to squeeze more taxes out of the residents of New York City, and that’s unacceptable. “
Albany lawmakers doubted the depth of Mamdani’s budget crisis, but also took offense at his argument that Big Apple taxes are unfairly propping up other parts of the Empire State.
Assemblyman Pat Burke (D-Erie), who described himself as “friends” with his former colleague Mamdani, said upstate cities such as Buffalo need state support just as much as the five boroughs, if not more.
“The argument that New York City is paying 54% of the taxes and essentially the rest of us are takers, I don’t think is a healthy one,” he said.
“It actually is a pretty conservative vantage point argument.”
And Gov. Kathy Hochul – a Democrat who has embraced parts of Mamdani’s affordability agenda – signaled she wasn’t swayed into changing her opposition to taxing the wealthy.
“The Governor’s position has not changed,” her spokeswoman Jen Goodman said.