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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with a name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates pricing coverage match limited by state law not available in all states.
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All right, buenas dias, listeners. I am in Mexico and I want to talk to you all about a New York Times focus group that just dropped today. And this is pretty fascinating stuff because I think we've all felt it. We've all felt that the base of the party is moving towards wanting to fight, wanting to be a full resistance. And then our Democratic leadership, specifically Chuckles and Hakeem and some other players surrounding them, are not putting up a fight at all. Validation at once. Kylie popped this up. A New York Times just did a focus group of Democrats and this is what they had to say about their own party. The words were spineless, more complacent than I thought they would be. Paralyzed, afraid, incompetent, suffocated, sold out. The Democratic Party lined their pockets and created, they created this mess. Put up the next slide, Kylie. Sellouts and suckers, immobilized. Can I say no balls, no cojones. I will say that there are a large number of young Democrats that are really starting to climb the ranks in the party, that are motivated. I'm hoping that the word starts to take over a little more. So I think that the New York Times found a group of people for this focus group that represent people all across the country. Americans that are independent, Democratic, progressive or leftist are very disappointed in Democratic leadership. This is not happening in a vacuum. This is nationwide. But that last Person in the focus group mentioned young Democrats who were fighting the good fight. And one shining example even Trump couldn't help but just smile and stare at. The man in complete adoration is of course, the mayor of New York City, the young progressive Zoran Mamdani. And he is the most favorable politician in the United States of America right now. Kylie, pop this up. Zorin Mamdani's popularity hits new high according to this poll, and this is in Newsweek. And so why is Zorin so popular? Zorin is so popular because he is not beholden to corporations, period. And he takes a message of universal human rights, and that includes affordability. Affordability meaning it's equal to everybody. And people like that message, people like that. He is not a status quo, pick me politician. So, as you all know, he just was sworn in and he has gotten to work very, very quickly. One thing I like about what the mayor of New York does is he does a very good governing and communicating to the public what he's doing. He's constantly on social media, he's constantly on podcasts, constantly on the news, adding to the narrative, this is what we did today. This is what we need to do today. But when he arrived in the city hall, in the mayor's office, the former mayor, Eric Adams, left him with a billion dollar deficit. And according to the state law, they have to operate under a balanced budget. Well, Zoron is pulling up with the, you know, great electoral win that he had against Democratic establishment candidates, against the Republican Party, against the billionaire class, against the Epstein class. Zoran won and he won from everyday Americans and small donors. But he's facing this multibillion dollar deficit. And so he goes to the people and he spells it out as plain spoken as you can imagine. Play this clip.
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I want to be clear. $5.4 billion is still a very steep mountain to climb. And there are two paths that we can walk. One that offers long term stability and a second one with significant pain that we deeply hope to avoid. The first path repairs the structural imbalance between the city and the state. We want to work with Albany to raise personal income taxes by 2% on the 33,000 New Yorkers earning more than $1 million a year. And to raise corporate taxes on the most profitable corporations. And we know that for far too long, New Yorkers have given far more to the state than what we have received in return. It is time to end the drain. If we cannot follow this first path, we will be forced onto a much more damaging path of last resort. One where we have to use the only tools at the city's raising property taxes and raiding our reserves. This second path is painful. We will continue to work with Albany to avoid it. This first path will deliver the structural change that we need to recalibrate the relationship between the city and the state. Because, as we know, New Yorkers contribute 54.5% of state revenue, but receive only 40.5% back. At the same time, New York City's portion of the state's GDP has grown by nearly 10% since 2010. That imbalance is untenable. Once again, I'm calling for Albany to end the drain. There is no third option of failing to balance the budget by law. Ever since the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, which placed the city on the brink of bankruptcy, New York City has been legally required to balance its budget. We will do so. If we cannot pursue the first path, the only option we have remaining is the second path. At the heart of this path is a property tax increase. This would effectively be a tax on working and middle class New Yorkers who have a median income of $122,000. The second path also requires us to raid our reserves. It would mean withdrawing $980 million from our city's rainy day fund in fiscal year 2026 and $229 million from the retiree health benefit trust in fiscal year 2027. These are steps that have.
- [07:27]
C
Okay, so as you can see, the mayor of New York is actually taking this problem to the people. And this is a problem of mismanagement and previous administrations failing to tax corporations and tax the wealthy in a manner that helps the city function. The city puts in more money to the state, then it gets back. And so there was a big stink in the far, far left side of the political world when Zoron endorsed Kathy Hochul. And she is the incumbent governor and she's running again and she is a Democrat. I think that this situation, you guys, where Zoron, who is progressive, he's on the left side of everything, and Kathy Hochul, the governor, would be a little bit more towards the center than he is. They can set out a blueprint right now to show the rest of the country this is how this works. You have a person who won by almost double digits to be in the mayor's office and he has to work with this governor. There tends to be this in the Democratic Party that we can't work together. We're not going to vote this way unless you do this and that. And I think Zoron's way forward. Number one, taking it to the people, people and telling the people this is what we can do. We can tap into the people whose lives are not going to be affected by this. And I need the governor's help. And the governor and I can not only show America that this is how the Democratic Party works together, but also these fissures within the Democratic Party. This is how we build a big tent party. Taxing the rich is not some crazy leftist idea. It is a centrist, moderate position. Right now. What is radical is what has happened all of these years now. And that is putting the burden of mismanagement, of not taxing the wealthy and giving them ridiculous tax breaks and putting that on the backs of working class people. And historically, right now, not just for every other blue state across the country, because Trump has given the wealthy so many tax breaks, they're not going to be getting as much income in these states because of the big ugly bill. Kathy Hochul and Zoran Mamdani have the opportunity to show Americans what compromise looks like and what fairness is. And right now, it would not be fair to tax working class people who will feel this, who will feel it so much more so than these corporations and uber wealthy New Yorkers. And listen, nobody likes paying taxes. Nobody does. But the Republican Party for years has lied to the American public. They've lied to you and told you they're good at business. They've lied to you and they've only lowered the wealthy's taxes and told you that the wealth would trickle down to you. And it never happened. And during this time, deficits have ballooned up and they never want wealthy people to pay for their mistakes. They always want working class people to pay for their mistakes. And then they blame the working class people for saying, well, maybe you should get a second job or you want better health insurance, maybe you should get a better job. You can't afford child care, tough titties. That's not our problem. So the cruelty within the Republican Party and the way they leave these egregious holes and let's, let's get real for a second. Eric Adams governed pretty much like a Republican. And this deficit that he's left the new mayor with pretty much confirms that. But Kathy Hochul was one of the first to go endorse Zoron. And I was so upset when I saw Chuckles and Hakeem so tepid to go endorse this super popular progressive candidate. I was so disappointed when I saw them not support Zoron. But I always saw the governor supporting him that she saw like, this is one of the greatest cities in the world. The city loves this guy. I'm going to have to work with this guy and I'm going to be his ally. And I'm hopeful. I've had Kathy Hochul on the podcast probably a year or so ago, and I found her to be a problem solving, pragmatic, deeply compassionate, progressive person. I believe that Kathy Hochul understands what's happening here and I believe that her political impulses are good. She endorsed Zorin early and I think that she knows that she has to partner with him to help this city and to put up a resistance against Trump and make a blueprint for all of the other Democratic states across the board. This is how we work together. This is how the progressive flank of the party partners with the less progressive flank of the party. And we're not going to play nanny nanny boo boo politics. We have to work together to solve these budgetary issues. And I think that these two people can do it. If they can do this, it sends a message to the Democratic Party at large. This is how we solve these problems. We have to work together. The base of the Democratic Party people will say has moved far to the left, but that's not the case. The moderate position has moved over there. It is a moderate position that the wealthy should pay their fair share in taxes. It is a moderate position that you expect the governor and mayors to work together to not make working class people's lives more difficult. That is a moderate position. And I believe that we need to keep our eyes on New York City right now because there's one little shining thing in the shit show that is maga, that if we can see this governor and this mayor show the Democratic Party and thus America how to work together to not put the mistakes of bad politicians choices on working class Americans. This is popular. It is a common sense position. And I am so hopeful that we can continue to see Kathy Hochul and Zoran Mamdani come together to show the United States and the Democratic Party how we do this, how we function as a government. All right. That's all we have. Like subscribe Comment Adios. I'll be back later with more news.
- [14:26]
A
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with a name your price tool from Progressive you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates pricing coverage match limited by state law not available in all states.