Zohran Mamdani's freebies to be paid for by new taxes—Hochul already said 'no'

Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani was pressed on his plan to pay for free busses and free child care for all New Yorkers and his answer was essentially to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy. Governor Kathy Hochul has already said that she would not approve new taxes on the tax base the state cannot afford to lose.

"Let's talk about free busses, Mr. Mamdani," said a moderator, "this is a centerpiece of your campaign. Can you explain how you will make busses free?" They gave him 30 seconds to answer.

"We will make busses free by replacing the revenue the MTA currently gets from busses," Mamdani said. "This is revenue that's around $700 million or so... We will fund the revenue that would have otherwise been brought in from fares, and that's something that we would do.

"In partnership with Albany and I put forward two proposals," he said. "The first is to raise taxes on the top 1% of New Yorkers by 2% that would raise $4 billion the second is to raise the state's top corporate tax rate to match that of New Jersey, which would raise $5 billion."

Curtis Sliwa pointed out that the real problem is the fare-evaders, people who refuse to pay their fare, which would cause a collapse of the MTA system. "Everybody should be forced to pay their fare," he said before moderators cut him off.

Former Governor Andrew Cuomo said that "free busses is a mistake" and that the $700 million shortfall the lack of that fare would create does not even match the $500 million raised from congestion pricing. He also said that when a free bus program was piloted with just five busses, those conveyances became homeless gathering places.

While moderators asked Mamdani and Cuomo for their plans, they virtually ignored GOP candidate Sliwa, barely letting him respond to questions before trying to cut him off so the other two Democrats could speak. When he did manage to get a word in, Sliwa said "You got to cut taxes for people to stay here. Corporations are not going to stay here."