I think after Zohran Mamdani takes office in January that we should start calling the “Big Apple” “Havana or Caracas on the Hudson.” Though I already knew the outcome of the election long before election night, the next day I was so depressed that I streamed a documentary on the Black Death which decimated Europe in the 14th Century killing 25 million people or one-half the continents population.

Some of you might say that watching a documentary on a deadly pandemic in the middle ages would depress me even more, but here’s the point: the black death killed 25 million people but in comparison, to date communist regimes have reportedly killed as many as 148 million people.

The mayor elect has promised the world to New Yorkers. His promises include freezing the rent for more than 2 million tenants living in rent-controlled housing. The current rent control measures were enacted in 1969 and coupled with ”restrictive zoning” or stringent regulations that limit how land can be used and developed and has been the major cause of New York City’s affordable housing shortage.

Mamdani has also promised to raise the minimum wage to $30 an hour by 2030. However when the city raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2018, the results were  catastrophic with increased unemployment. Nearly doubling the current minimum wage of $16.50 would certainly produce similar consequences with many businesses shuttering or cutting payroll by drastically cutting staffing.

Mamdani promised to eliminate the fare on every city bus to make them “fast” and “free.” The plan would cost taxpayers $600 million to $800 million annually and likely result in slower speeds, which is what happened when the city tested five fare-free bus lines in 2023 and 2024.

The mayor-elect has also proposed not-for-profit, government-run grocery stores costing $140 million a year to supposedly reduce prices. New York’s grocery stores, like others across the country, operate on razor-thin margins. The profit motive isn’t to blame for high grocery prices; inflation and supply chain disruptions are. In addition, government run grocery stores have failed wherever they have been tried. Nor should we forget the pictures of government run grocery stores in the former Soviet Union with empty shelves and display cases.

To aid families struggling to afford childcare, Mamdani wants to offer free childcare to children 6 weeks to 5 years old. These city run day cares would cost taxpayers an estimated $6 billion annually.

Naturally, Mamdani promises that New Yorkers won’t pay for his multi-billion dollar programs because those greedy corporations will. This would be through a $5 billion annual corporate tax if Mamdani can convince state lawmakers to increase the city’s corporate tax rate from 7.5% to 11.5%. Should he be successful, New Yorkers should expect companies to reduce benefits, and employees in order to remain in business. Some might abandon the city altogether.

Already JPMorgan Chase  a New York based financial company has 31,000 employees in Dallas versus 24,000 In New York.

Only time will tell if Mamdani can actually pass his Marxist schemes. But if they are implemented, they’re likely to drive high earners and billion dollar corporations out of the city to states like Florida, Texas or the Carolinas cutting into the tax base and making goods and services more expensive, in turn reducing the revenue available to fund his promises.

During the campaign Mamdani assumed a nice guy persona smiling warmly. It seemed to work but many knew it was phony and something that he had probably spent hours rehearsing before a mirror.

His victory speech began with the left wing end of the campaign boiler plate even saying, “And we will build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism.” Those words were from a man who would not condemn outright the phrase “globalize the intifada.”

Nearing the speech’s conclusion, he became more strident, and it seemed as if he had modeled this portion on the speeches of Vladimir Lenin. He began attacking Trump and the billionaire class telling his listeners that “Together we will usher in a generation of change. If we embrace this brave new course, rather than fleeing from it, we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves.” Now lapsing in Trump derangement syndrome, he added “…if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him it is the city that gave rise to him.”

He went on to warn the “the Donald Trumps of our city” that he would end the “culture of corruption” that allowed them to evade taxation and exploit tax breaks while taking advantage of their tenants.

Perhaps the scariest sentence in Mamdani’s victory speech was “We will prove that there is no problem too large for the government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.”

Here I remembered the words of Ronald Reagan who wisely said, “…. government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” later adding that “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

No doubt interesting times are ahead for the city of New York and its citizens. I’m glad I don’t live there.

Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com