If you voted for a mayor who promised free buses, a harder squeeze on the city’s richest, and a wholesale remaking of how New York shares wealth and services, you were promised a fast and dramatic reset. What you may not have bought was the ticket that says Albany gets a vote.
Governor Kathy Hochul’s early posture—firmly noncommittal on fare-free buses, reluctant to embrace new, aggressive taxes on the top 1%, and content to let congestion pricing sit on her political shelf—was an instructive reminder: the mayor of New York can dream big, but the state holds a lot of the keys. For everyone who expected a one-seat mayoral victory to trigger a full-scale socialist makeover, the resulting conversation has ranged from deflation to polite panic.
Let’s be candid about a few inconvenient truths.
1) Structural limits are real
Public transit is an expensive, regional system. The MTA’s budget doesn’t magically evaporate when you decide bus fares should be zero. Someone has to replace the lost revenue—city taxpayers? the state? federal grants?—and each option ripples through budgets, union contracts, and operating schedules. Taxing the top 1% sounds great in a rhetorical ad, but changing tax policy in New York often requires Albany cooperation and, even then, can trigger flight risks and legal headaches. You don’t abolish fiscal constraints by chanting slogans.
2) Politics is the art of the possible, not the recital of manifestos
Progressive platforms expand the Overton window; they make us imagine a different city. That is valuable. But turning aspiration into policy requires coalition-building with people who didn’t vote for you: state legislators, business leaders, municipal unions, and sometimes even skeptical voters in other boroughs. If the campaign leaned too heavily on the theatrical—massive promises without a mapped path through Albany’s legislative maze—then disappointment was baked in.
3) Voters were partly sold a fantasy of unilateral municipal power
New York City is powerful, but it’s not autonomous. State preemption, court oversight, and regional bodies like the MTA complicate even the most earnest municipal ambitions. Expecting the governor to roll over because a mayor says so was, at best, optimistic brinksmanship; at worst, a misreading of how real governance gets done.
4) A socialist agenda may not fit this city’s political economy
Bear with me while I flirt with an uncomfortable thought: a full-throated socialist program—large-scale municipal ownership, sweeping wealth redistribution via local taxation, and immediate universal entitlements—runs into practical resistance here. New York is both deeply unequal and deeply interconnected with national and global capital. The city’s tax base is unusually concentrated among high-net-worth individuals and corporations; a half-measure deterring wealth could accelerate dispersal of that base. The private sector, from Wall Street to tech firms to small businesses, still employs millions and influences policy through investment choices and mobility. Implementing sweeping policies without safeguarding the city’s economic engines risks shrinking the very revenue streams needed to fund ambitious programs.
None of which is an argument for inertia. It is an argument for strategy.
If Mamdani and his team genuinely want durable, transformative change rather than headline-friendly stunts, they’ll need to do the following:
- Build Albany bridges, not just borough buzz. Secure buy-in or workable compromises with the governor’s office and state legislature before promising citywide entitlements that require state cooperation.
- Pilot, evaluate, scale. Test fare-free corridors or time-limited pilot programs funded with a mix of city, state, and federal dollars—prove outcomes, then ask for expansion.
- Protect the tax base while increasing progressivity. Design tax changes that target windfalls and speculative gains, not payrolls or small-business growth, and include anti-avoidance measures.
- Leverage federal aid and creative finance. Grants, green bonds, and congestion-revenue reinvestment can help bridge initial costs.
- Be honest with voters. Aspirations are galvanizing; so is candor about trade-offs, timelines, and the sometimes mundane coalition work that gets policy passed.
A mild bit of sarcasm is perhaps warranted: anyone who believed that one mayoral victory would rewire a centuries-old political ecosystem had an admirable faith in the power of ballots—and perhaps an underappreciation for Albany’s appetite for compromise. The better view is that the election was a mandate to try, not a magic wand.
So has the socialist-sounding revolution stalled? In headline terms, yes: big-ticket items are bumping up against political and fiscal reality. But stalled is not dead. It may simply be entering the sad but necessary phase of governance: negotiation, adjustment, and incremental wins. If you were looking for instant transformation, soul-search whether you really wanted systemic change or just a dramatic headline. If you want durable progress, hope the new administration swaps some rally-stage rhetoric for grit—and a plan that recognizes New York’s complicated, stubborn realities.
Then also consider the financial support that will be needed from Washington, D.C. Mamdani poked the bear a bit too much to even think that’s a reality! Congrats Mayor-Elect — you already failed the city with your wild promises!
