"Our 40th president, Ronald Reagan … famously said, 'The nine most terrifying words in the English language are "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help,"'" Zohran Mamdani noted in a recent speech. "It's a good quote, but I disagree. I think nine more terrifying words are actually, 'I worked all day and can't feed my family.'"
"We are going to use the power of government to lower prices and make it easier for new Yorkers to put food on the table," he declared.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist associated with the Democratic Socialists of America, grew up in an academically and politically engaged household rooted in progressive activism. In office, he has supported policies to expand social housing and social welfare programs aligned with the U.S. left-progressive movement.
Jeff Stier, a longtime Manhattan resident and advisor to The Heartland Institute, takes issue with the mayor saying, "We're going to use the power of government."
"He said that explicitly, but what he didn't say was what that means," Stier notes. "Using the power of government to redistribute wealth so you can work all day and have enough money means that power of government is the power of taxation to take away even more money from the people who are earning enough."
Stier has given Mamdani credit for being open and honest about his politics, for not campaigning one way and then becoming a different person after entering office. But now he thinks the mayor needs to be direct about how he plans to lower the cost of living.
Once he discloses that he will have to confiscate even more money from the people who are living above the poverty level, Stier believes that will force out the people who do have the money that he is targeting.
"I think people should know that," Stier says.
He also points out that there is no society in the history of earth where a socialist plan, over the long term, increased people's quality of life.
Calling Mamdani's plan an idyllic, nice view that has never in history worked, Stier asserts that "it won't work here."
