Recently, Zohran Mamdani has claimed he’s “balanced the budget” in New York City.

But the problem is that his own budget proposal reportedly counts $1.64 billion as “savings” from restructuring New York City’s unfunded pension liabilities–in other words, delaying payments on the city’s roughly $27 billion pension debt.
Before this proposal, the city was on track to pay off that pension debt by 2032. Mamdani’s plan pushes the timeline back to 2037, lowering payments now while increasing the long-term burden later through additional interest and lost investment growth.

The state government in Albany also bailed out the mayor with roughly $4 billion in state support and state-authorized budget measures, contributing to nearly $8 billion in assistance over two years.

That is not balancing a budget. It is refinancing government debt and calling it savings.

This is the kind of politics Americans are tired of. Politicians promise massive new programs, insist it will all somehow pay for itself, and then rely on accounting tricks, debt restructuring, and Ponzi schemes to try and make the numbers look better on paper.

Taxpayers deserve transparency. And future generations deserve leaders willing to solve problems honestly instead of handing them the bill later.

Let’s make sure the rest of the country never goes down the same path.