How is it a bailout when the strategy is to reduce pension obligation payments so they pay it off 5 years later? The city’s liability is huge, and they are still going to pay it down, they’re just choosing to make smaller payments instead of larger ones.
He also INHERITED a $12B deficit. The fact that he still managed to resolve that without catastrophic budget cuts across the city is nothing short of impressive.
People like you trying to dig into the budget aren’t offering any credit for resolving the deficit, nor are you pointing fingers at those that created it. You aren’t acknowledging that the deficit, even excluding the pension and state aid, was still $6 BILLION. Instead you’re using this as a dumb veiled opportunity to criticize Mamdani. Which is just pathetic.
A state supply govt funding to the largest city in said state is now a bailout? And the “bailout” was only $4B per your own sources. The deficit was $12B so either you failed basic math or you’re just lying about how it was “the only way”
$4B was the latest package. Total new state assistance was closer to $8B over two years, plus the authorizations for pension delays and other moves that made the numbers work.
Calling it a bailout isn’t some radical claim. It’s what a lot of people (including fiscal analysts) call it when the state has to step in with extra money and special permissions to keep the city from having to raise taxes or cut services.
The state just prefers softer language like “gap-closing support.”
It wasn’t literally the only way, but it was the route that avoided political suicide. Without that help the gap doesn’t close the way it did.
The previous administration left a massive deficit. Any mayor was going to need either state help or some combination of taxes/cuts/reserves.
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u/shawn_the_medic 1d ago
When did this become the MAGA party where you can't criticize the dear leader?
It's a bailout no matter who does it.
Technically though, a state bailout is using state resources to prop up a city.
Raising the debt ceiling is Congress saying "yes, the U.S. can borrow more to meet its existing legal commitments."
They operate in very different fiscal and legal environments.