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Mayor Mamdani Goes (Back) to Albany, with Jon Paul Lupo
01:11:21
Jon Paul Lupo — a political strategist and former…
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Foreign.
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Hello and welcome to Max Politics. This has been Max coming to you from New York Law School and its center for New York City and State Law. Thanks for tuning in for this episode of the show. Speaking here on Wednesday, February 11, 2026, just after Mayor Zoram Hamdani's official return to Albany, where he was a state legislator representing parts of Queens in the assembly for the last five, this time as the new mayor of New York City, of course. And this was one in a series of state budget hearings being held by the New York State Senate and Assembly jointly after the release of the governor's executive budget proposal. And this is what is affectionately, I guess, known as Tim Tin Cup Day, where the leaders of municipalities around the state, including the mayor of New York City and the mayor of other big cities in the state, go and testify before the state legislature and talk about how much money they need from the state and how much more help their cities need and all that. There's other people who testify as well, like the speaker of the New York City Council and the New York City Comptroller and others. But the main attraction of the day is always, or almost always the first testimony from the mayor of New York City. And it takes on extra importance and intrigue when it's the first testimony from a newly elected mayor. And that's what we had today here on Wednesday, February 11, with Zora Mamdani testifying before the state legislature from about 9:40am to around 2pm A lengthy testimony with lots of questions from state senators and legislators who represent parts of New York City and well beyond in the state. So a lot of interesting back and forth that we'll get into a little bit here on the podcast today, as well as the sort of bigger picture of what's going on between the mayor and the governor, the mayor and the state legislature, the new mayor having to deal with a multi billion dollar budget gap while also, of course, dealing with state policy. And there's a lot of state policy that always works its way into the state budget, which is due by April 1, although it often comes in later than that. And the city budget then has to react to that. And we are just in the beginning of the city's own budget process. Mayor Mamdani has to release a preliminary budget for next fiscal year, which, which he will do so on February 17, and that will get his outline for the city's fiscal year, which begins July 1. And by the time we get to that point, the city will be taking into account the finalized details of the state budget, which we expect sometime in April, maybe it'll be in May like it has been in some recent years, but somewhere in there that the city can then adjust to before it needs to dictate its own spending plan for the next few fiscal year. So this is all underway. It's budget issues and then it's also policy issues, things like mayoral control of New York City schools and much more. So to help me break down some of what happened in Albany today at this hearing and the bigger picture involved is John Paul Lupo. Back to the podcast. He's the founder of areit Public Affairs, a consultancy specializing in public affairs, government relations, and campaign management. He's a veteran of many public affairs and political campaigns in New York and elsewhere and of New York City government, and very relevant to this conversation, which is why I invited him to join me. His government experience includes being Director of Intergovernmental affairs and of City Legislative affairs before that for the New York City Mayor's Office under Bill de Blasio. And while he was Director of Intergovernmental affairs for New York City, he overstraw the state Legislative affairs team, which managed all aspects of the mayor's office's relations with Albany and the Legislature, including state budget negotiations, testimony at the state, and Legislative relations. So the perfect person to talk to here on Tin Cup Day and Mayor Mamdani's first testimony in front of the Legislature. He used to be on the other side of the dais asking the questions of mayors, and now he was the mayor in the hot seat. But he also had some of his top government officials with him, like First Deputy Mayor Dean Fulihan and City Budget Director Sharif Solomon, who are major city government veterans. And my guest today has worked with before, John Paul Lupo. Thanks for joining me. How are you?
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I'm doing great. Thanks for having me, Ben. Before we get into the real stuff, this, I always hated this day because all the prep that went into this happened the weekend before, which is, of course, super bowl weekend. And I missed many a Super bowl in my time.
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Oh, man.
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Government at Gracie Mansion prepping for this hearing. So I'm very glad I did not have to do that this year.
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That is rough. They got to, you know, figure out the schedule around that to like, you know, the deadline for the Sunday is really 5pm and you get to go home and watch the super bowl and then you get back at it the next.
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Brutal, Just brutal.
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All right, well, glad you had an easier experience now that you're out of government here. But say a Little bit more about what that work was like about the prep, about the day itself. I mean, this is a really big day. A basically, again, most New Yorkers are obviously not tuning in for this hearing, but the eyes of the political world in New York are very much on this hearing. For me, it's one of the top five days of the political calendar each year for sure. There's a lot at stake in terms of these exchanges with state legislators. Say a little bit about the general atmosphere, the prep, you know, a little more about your experience, and then we'll get into what to do today look like for Mayor Mamdani.
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Yeah, it's by far one of the most important and most stressful days for any New York City mayor as they go through this, you know, six month budget process, legislative session, etc. That, that takes on added pressure when it's your first time, but it doesn't really matter in any year when you have to go up to Albany, you've got three or four jobs you have to do on that day. The testimony that you deliver is of course, carefully crafted. Putting up front the big priorities that the mayor has, trying to make the case as best you can for why your view of the world from a revenue perspective should sort of rule the day. Even though the council and the controller and the state legislature often have wildly divergent views of what the revenue picture is for the state and the city, you've got to get all that up front. You've got to prioritize the big things that you want to get out of the budget. So for Mayor Mondani, that's, you know, universal childcare and, you know, mayoral control extension and fast and free buses and money for affordable housing. And you've got to sort of talk about all those things at once. And then on top of all that, just in the hearing itself, you got to be ready to answer questions. Some questions will be disagreeing with some of the core premises you've done, but a lot of the questions, as we saw today, will be out of left field. It's a legislator who may not even be from New York City who has a pet thing that they want to ask about. Some of those are funny. Like what the only football team to play in New York State is. But some of that can get really serious and get into the nitty gritty. So your team has to be deeply prepared to handle those questions. As a mayor, you never want to look like you're caught flat footed. Involves a lot of preparation into those things. And then the day itself doesn't end when your testimony is over. You're not up in Albany all that much as mayor. So you want to meet with the speaker of the Assembly, Carl Hastie. You want to meet with the Senate Majority leader. Maybe you're talking to the governor while you're up there. And then we always tried as best we could to have individual meetings, maybe with Liz Krueger, who chairs the relevant Senate committee, in this case Gary Pretlow, the Assembly chair. We also tried to do some larger group meetings, maybe with caucuses or with legislators from individual boroughs. We tried a variety of different models to see what worked the best, just to maximize the facetime the mayor had with members when he was up there. So it's a pressure packed day. You've got to do a media availability while you're at it and answer some questions from the press. The hearing today went five hours. I think that happens. It can be even a little longer. Your whole schedule after that gets thrown off and then you got to get back to the city. You got, you know, 8, 10, 20 things happening here that you and your first deputy mayor and your director of Intergovernmental affairs have not been able to deal with while you're up there. So it's, it's a jam packed day. It's highly pressurized. You've got to perform. You got to be on the whole day. And you know, if you're in this business like we are, you thrive on the adrenaline. It can be fun, it can be exciting. But, but man, you're tired. When the day's over and you're headed back to the city, say a little
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bit more about the atmosphere and the goals here. So I imagine some of this is different. When it is the first time a new mayor is going there, you've got more wind at your back. You know, we saw, we saw for Mayor Mamdani, for example. You know, obviously everybody is saying congratulations. Even the people that are going to ask him the testier questions and the Republicans who are going to skewer him mostly are saying congratulations and, you know, things like that. And everybody, you know is going to be pretty impressed with the winner of the mayoral race in New York City. What a huge job. You know, anybody who wins it had to have run a pretty good campaign and all that. So, you know, you've got a bit of admiration and you've got congratulations and you've got, you know, probably your highest approval rating that you'll ever have again and more political capital and all that. So there's a little difference the first year. But generally speaking, you know, what are some of the goals of the day as you think about it? And especially, you know, the most important person who's not involved in the hearing is the governor, whoever that may be. Right. And they have to also be sort of front of mind for any mayor testifying before the legislature because in theory, what these are are hearings about the governor's executive budget proposal that will then also lead to, you know, to the state legislature in each house developing their one house budget proposals in March, and then the state, you know, budget process unfolding between the legislature and the governor after that with input, of course, from officials like the New York City mayor. But the governor is extremely important looming over there. Say a little bit more about sort of different goals and constituencies and sort of getting out of there successful or at least unscathed, I imagine, imagine some situations. The idea is like no bad headlines is a key goal. You know that.
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Well, I'll keep it PG for your very respectable podcast and just say don't, don't f up is is I think a first rule. You're not, you're not going to win the budget negotiations on this day in February in Albany. But, but you may very well lose them if you do something that is problematic. So, yeah, I think to your point, the first rule of Fight Club is, you know, there, there is no Fight Club here. You want every legislator to feel like you're respecting their question and giving them, you know, attention and answers you don't want. And I noticed there were a few times today that there were some awkward questions that involved maybe some dynamics with the governor that Zoran and Dean and Sharif were very careful not to step on toes with what the governor's doing because you just want to get through the day and not get a call from somebody on the second floor or the speaker's office of the majority leader that says, gee, I really can't believe you did this or you said that. So it's not even so much the headlines as just those, you know, those three people in a room in Albany you want to leave at least not upset with how you performed. And I think that that is always rule number one. Now you've got in Zoran's case, and it's, you know, it's always the case. You have sort of one top line goal. As you go into those conversations and the broader budget conversations, you want to advance the ball down the field on what your goal is. For Bill de Blasio, obviously, when you started out, it was funding For Pre K, for Xoran this year, it seems like his top goal coming in is some sustainable, ongoing revenue source out of the state to try and undo some of this. What he is saying is an Adams budget crisis and state damage done by some of the past actions the state have taken. So he's proposed a few different ways to do that. Tax increases, rejiggering of some of the state funding formulas to put the city back in them, to increase the balance of money that goes out of New York City and tax dollars and comes back. So you want to advance the ball in some way on that agenda. And again, you can do that through your public testimony and through the private conversations that you have. And then I think, you know, for a new mayor, you're a little different for Zoran, because he comes from the assembly, but, you know, it's still a big place, Albany. He doesn't know all these legislators. He's creating new relationships, new dynamics, even some of the old relationships he had or some of his strong political allies. You've got, you know, Assemblymember Claire Valdez asking him about a train extension that's important to her, that maybe isn't in the budget plans for the city. And you've got to manage these new dynamics and come out of it in a stronger position as you possibly can. So it's sort of reintroducing yourself to these folks as the mayor in the hope that those relationships either are renewed or remain as strong as they were before. But bottom line, don't make a mistake. Get through the day without a major error is what I imagine Sharif and Dean and Simonia were telling him as he prepared for this.
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And. And Jamila Edwards also there.
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Jamila Edwards, who, you know, we'll talk about some of the players here, but yeah, a deep history of her own from Doe, doing a lot of the work on Pre K for the. For Mary. Bless you.
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Yeah. And we'll get into more specifics on the Mandani exchanges in another minute, but briefly, since you, you know, we're stressing this. In your opinion, nothing that you saw that happened today that would be a big F up on his part?
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No, not at all.
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I don't think there was.
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Yeah. And you asked about atmospherics, and I think this is really important. There's some history here. There's some. I would. I would say this is the friendliest I've ever seen. This dynamic.
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It was quite friendly. Yes.
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And I think some of that is structural. Right. Bill de Blasio, who was in a similar political position to Zoran when he first got into office even more.
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He was. I mean, he won a landslide general election. Go ahead.
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Yeah. But had a Republican Senate that he was walking into when he got up there. So there was. And then, of course, the Andrew Cuomo dynamic. So there was some built in hostility there. So that was the, you know, sort of 14 to 18, really created a shadow. And then by the years that I was deeply involved in this process in 2018 and 2019, his reelection had happened. His own political standing had eroded to the point where even the relationships with the Democrats weren't as strong as they were early on. And you still had some Republicans kicking around. You know, Mayor Adams had what maybe should have been a friendly atmosphere that turned very hostile very quickly early on in his tenure. So by his own doing.
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Yeah.
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Yes. And then, you know, we mentioned some of the team. I don't know if you want to get into that later, but it's not just the structural atmosphere. He has a very good, deeply experienced Albany team that has helped to create that smoothness. You saw, even Republicans were very familiar with Dean Simon Y. Sharif. And, you know, it was sort of smiles and handshakes and back slaps all around. Right.
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And this is, this is part. Right. And there were some tough lines of questioning. Even some interesting Democratic legislators had some tough things to say. I'll get to that in a minute and we'll talk about, you know, some of those specifics. But Dean Foolihan, the first deputy mayor, who was also first deputy mayor and prior to that, budget director under Bill de Blasio, this is part of the reason that that was such a smart and safe pick for Mamdani was because of his familiarity, having come out of the state assembly where he worked for many years, familiarity with Albany, familiarity with so many legislators like Senator Krueger, who chairs the, you know, state Senate Finance Committee and co chaired this hearing. And as you said, even Republicans, you know, very familiar with him and respect respecting him. Such a key part of it. One of the other interesting things here, just sort of globally again, is that, you know, is these fascinating power dynamics. Right. So in a way, the mayor of New York City comes to Albany and they're a political rock star and they're immensely politically powerful in the eyes of state legislators, even if they're in a diminished state, much less at the top of their powers after just having been elected. Right. But on the flip side of that, the mayor is there with their tin cup and the state legislators have a sense of power over them and they know that the mayor is there to answer their questions. Now sometimes they only have like three minutes, you know, some of them to ask questions. So it's, it's a rush job and they can only ask one or two questions. And there's all these issues with people saying, oh, I don't have much more time. You can't finish answering that. And, you know, it's kind of messy. But there's just that fascinating dichotomy of the power dynamics where in some ways the mayor is obviously much more powerful. And then in some ways, even the rank and file state assembly members have lots of power over the mayor, including even in the theatrics of this hearing, where they can try to embarrass the mayor, things like that. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, but it's just fascinating and also gets at the root of all of this, which is largely how much New York City is dictated by the state. How little New York City can control is such an interesting dynamic here.
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It's a microcosm of the bigger governing dynamic. And it happens on a three to five hour period on a day when everybody's watching. But I think you hit it right on the head. The state is, by constitution, control of the city. Everything essentially that New York City does is because that power has been delegated to it, the authority has been delegated to it, the resources have been provided to it by the state of New York, whether that's the ability to levy a tax or the ability to control the public schools. And so we have this weird dynamic in New York where the mayor of New York City is a local and national and in many cases international celebrity, government celebrity, political celebrity. And with the new mayor, of course, his international background has only heightened that. And there are certain days where he's got to go up and hold his tin cup. And the real power of these legislators and the governor to dictate what happens in New York City is on full display. And no amount of celebrity or press might or power can alter that. That fundamental dynamic, it is enduring. And the way they've structured all of that forces it. You know, everything that the city gets to do expires every three years or five years or two years or whatever it is. And you've got to go back hat in hand and get that reauthorization from the state. And they like to remind you of that.
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Yeah, this idea of the one big ask, right? We saw Mayor Bloomberg looking for mayoral control of city schools. As you got at, we saw Bill de Blasio looking for Pre K both sort of like authorization, but also funding. And now we see, you know, Mamdani coming. You know, seemingly if there hadn't already been an announcement on this, it would have been universal childcare funding and steps in that direction. But he and the governor already sort of announced that and he kind of got that in her budget plan. So it was mostly just giving a sort of big nod to that in his opening testimony. And then a variety of comments from legislators saying, like, great work all of us on moving ahead on childcare and we're all doing it. And it's an issue where Republicans aren't even, you know, it's not even, like, controversial really, among Republicans, unless, you know, sometimes you get into the nitty gritty of how to pay for it and things like that. But. So that was sort of fascinating. I was a little surprised how much he's continuing to lean in on this push for increased taxes. Now, I know it's obviously a pillar of what he ran on, but the de Blasio echoes are there right where it was like de Blasio was talking about increasing taxes on high income earners to pay for universal pre K. But he was also talking about it as a matter of broader fairness about, you know, New York should have a more progressive tax code, etc. And people often forget that in this conversation of like, oh, de Blasio should have just like taken the win when Cuomo offered him the money for Pre K without the tax increases. Like, part of what de Blasio ran on was Tale of Two Cities inequality. You know, we don't have in a correct, you know, progressive tax system. And that's very similar to what Mamdani's argument is. He's like, we need the money for these programs to fill our budget gap, to do expansive programming. But also I kind of just believe that things are unfair and the rich are not paying their fair share. Yet at the same time, he's also said repeatedly, listen, I want to do these things. And if the funding's there by whatever means, you know, we absolutely are willing to take that. And, you know, so there's interesting dynamics there. I don't know what you, what you make of that and the politics of it, because obviously Governor Hochul is not interested in raising taxes. Both Democratic majorities of the legislature have been in favor of some additional tax increases, although New York has some of the highest tax rates on personal income taxes and corporations in the country. So there's interesting dynamics there. And also it gets to some of the political dynamics. The governor has a ton of control over policy and budget, but Mamdani has more of the juice on the sort of electoral side. And they've, you know, endorsed each other over these last six months in these, you know, funny ways. What do you make of those dynamics and the way that the tax conversation comes into it based on also your. Your history with these issues?
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Yeah. So I think first, let's very briefly cover this historical pre K versus universal childcare De Blasio and Cuomo versus Mamdani and Hochul. Andrew Cuomo could not be trusted to make a deal with in this budget process. And so when you look at January of 2014, I'll offer you this funding, just drop the tax thing. I think part of that was political. And you're seeing that with Mamdani this time. Part of that was just, you know, an offer of $200 million or whatever it was from Andrew Cuomo in January of 2014 wasn't worth the paper it was printed on in April of 2014. And so you had to continue the fight a little bit because you needed to make that deal much closer to the budget just to ensure you actually would get what you got. And I think the difference. You can't say enough about the difference between who Andrew Cuomo was as governor and who Kathy Hochul is. She is someone who is maybe not that ideologically different than Andrew Cuomo. When you just look at them, they're both kind of more centrist than what your typical mayor of New York City is. But she comes at the governing part and her relationship with the mayor of the city in a way that is just very genuine and honest. And I think that's made a massive difference in how these dynamics play out. I think that is the big difference between what happened in 2014 and what happened this time and why the linkage between taxes and pre K continued, even aside from the political benefit from it. So I think that's just. It's an aside, but it is important to note that difference matters a lot as today.
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Yeah. Let me also add to that, though. You know, Cuomo in 2014 was about to run for reelection for the first time as governor and was in a very strong political position. Right. I would argue much stronger than Governor Hochul has ever been in because, you know, she came into the office obviously taking over for Cuomo, resigning amidst all of his scandals. But, you know, then she did win an election, but she only won it by six points, and she doesn't have the New York City base that Andrew Cuomo has, which is so key to winning a statewide election, whether it's a primary or a general election.
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Well, that Andrew Cuomo had, obviously.
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Exactly, exactly. So those are fascinating.
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I think they feel. I think they feel very comfortable about her reelection.
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Oh, sure. Well, with Donald Trump in the White House, I think that's a huge, you know, boost for her.
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But yeah, there were different political dynamics, but I think that just the ability to make a deal with this governor that you can trust will. Will be honestly carried out is very important.
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Sure. No, that, that makes a lot. I'm just adding to the dynamics around, like, power, you know, and the ways in which Hokul obviously knows that she kind of needs Mamdani and his base to help her win, but she's leery of some of their politics. You know, it's fascinating. Really fast.
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Now, on, on taxes themselves, I think there's a few. Two main things that I think are important to Mamdani and why he continues to push for it. One, I do think he genuinely believes in it, as Bill de Blasio did. I do think he thinks it's good policy. He believes there is a fundamental unfairness. He believes the rich aren't paying their fair share. I think there is a genuine belief and they're right about the facts of what's going on with the city budget on a very, you know, 10,000 foot level. There has been this under budgeting, there has been an underfunding from the state. So I think all those things go into the substantive reason for him to continue advocating for the tax increase. I'm not saying those are my beliefs necessarily, but I do think this administration and this mayor genuinely believes those things, and I think he will continue to advocate for it throughout this budget process. I agree with you. I don't think he's going to get it. The governor's been pretty clear it's an election year not just for her, but the entire legislature. You don't tend to see revenue raisers happen in that environment. And I think we probably won't see a significant tax increase this year, at least not the one that Mamdani is asking for. But I think there's a more. There's also a political dynamic at play here. As you've said, the tax increases themselves in New York City are incredibly popular. If you poll New York City Democratic voters and ask them if they want to raise taxes on the rich, you'll get significant majorities saying that they support that. So it's an easy political play. From that perspective, take the secondary specific political dynamics that a Mayor Mamdani is dealing with. And you've got a series of things that he's going to have to do. And some of them he's done, and some of them will just come naturally where his base, you know, whether you call them the Commie Carter DSA or progressives or the far left, however you want to label them, they're not going to be happy about what he does. Some of that may be on policing, some of that may be on, you know, on mayoral control. Some of that may be on, you know, who knows? Whatever things come up, you got to run the government. There are rules. He's going to do things that they're not happy about, and maybe he doesn't want to do them and he's forced to, whatever. And I think this consistent reminder that he believes in progressive taxation and higher taxes is an important thing for him to hold on to and connection to that base, for him to continue to demonstrate his loyalty to that group of people and their principles. And whether it's not supporting Chiase in his primary against Hakeem Jeffries or some of the. As these dynamics play out and that base gets split, you know, Antonio Reynoso versus Claire Valdez in a congressional race, reminding them that he is the guy on sort of baseline popular political issues like this is important for him whether they succeed or fail in Albany. And I think he's got every incentive to continue to emphasize that as he moves throughout the course of his entire term, but especially this first budget.
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B
A couple more things on that one. I think it's fascinating because as you got at raising taxes on, you know, very high income earners and, you know, wealthy corporations, polls very well. We're in a populist moment that both Trump's election spoke to and Mamdadi's election spoke to. Governor Hochul has sort of tried to navigate those waters while not really being a populist, trying to find some sort of populist popularist, you know, policies to focus on. And of course, she's focused on cost of living issues and affordability, but she's also, I think, genuinely very leery about this. The high tax environment, losing wealthy people to other lower tax states, losing corporations or losing the possibility of corporate expansion, I think is probably the bigger concern to other states. And some of that came up in the hearing and some questions to Maidani that I think are very valid. You know, where are companies exactly, expanding? Where are companies, you know, putting down roots, you know, in developing industries? And sectors and all of that. Obviously, New York City is very vital. And, you know, the big. The big headline of the day actually was that the budget gaps that the mayor was recently talking about have now been reduced by a projected $5 billion already, from 12 billion to 7 billion for the current fiscal year and next, in part because tax revenues are coming in well above projections, which was expected, but he acknowledged that today. And so all of a sud in this fiscal crisis is a much more manageable fiscal challenge, which, again, many people discussed and expected, including when I had Andrew Ryan of Citizens Budget Commission on this podcast recently. We talked about how this is probably much more manageable than the mayor was talking about recently. But there's those fascinating conversations that again, speak to the politics of all this, which is the governor is not a populist, but across the board, politically, in many persuasions, there is this sort of, yeah, the rich can afford to pay more. While, you know, my. All of my bills have been going up due to inflation and all this, and corporations aren't paying their fair share and all that. You know, again, I don't know if that's actually best for New York because there are the very valid points that all of this tax revenue from the wealthy and corporations do then afford the vast social safety net that New York offers, that Mamdani wants to expand and that Hochul's wants to expand with child care and more. So it's all a balancing act, of course, and where those numbers net out is, is, you know, the potential big question. But I would also say, you know, there are obviously dynamics where you saw legislators from Long island, especially Democrats and Republicans, you know, pushing back on some of these proposals. And again, that's where a statewide campaign is fought in the five boroughs, but also beyond. And the mayor has less concern for the politics of Long island, right?
- [32:07]
A
Yeah, for sure. I mean, look, Governor Hochul has a different New York City residents are her constituents, but she's got millions of other constituents outside the city who view that same political tax question very differently than New York City residents view it. And from her perspective, the politics of a tax increase I think are more problematic or more, at least more complicated for her than they are for the mayor. But I would say there is, and this is something that I like to do when we were trying to solve these problems inside government and get to a deal. There is really one sort of singular point of disagreement that is a substantive point of disagreement that I think everyone can see. And the hearing made it painfully obvious what happens if we raise Taxes in New York City, in New York State, to corporations, to job creators. What is their reaction? We don't want to raise taxes. Perspective on that is we'll have a bunch of millionaires and billionaires, pull up routes, move to Florida, move to New Jersey, move to Pennsylvania, wherever they want to go. Texas, Arizona, they're going to go somewhere else because we're asking them to pay more taxes. And then you've got, you know, the flip side of that, which is progressive, to say, well, you know, you guys said this all in 2021, and we have more millionaires now than we did then. And, you know, it's a $20,000 tax increase. As Mayor Mohammedani said today on. On someone who earns $1 million. And we've got to stop, you know, making this out like the sky is falling. I think probably the truth is somewhere in between. The challenge of making policy here is you don't know where you've crossed the line. And when you do cross the line, are you able to sort of fix that? That can be the more complicated part. I think bail reform is a good example of the kind of dynamic that exists here. Nobody would argue. Well, I don't think it's fair to argue post bail reform that it didn't accomplish the goal that it wanted to, which that you had tens if not hundreds of thousands of black and brown New Yorkers who are low income, who are spending way too much time in city jails simply because they couldn't afford a few hundred or a few thousand dollars in bail. And that had devastating consequences on their lives and their families. The sort of flip side of that is, what's the deterrent effect and how does it affect crime? And I think, you know, you do the thing, you accomplish the goal, and then ideally, the way this would work out is you come back and you tinker and you make some small changes and you fix that. Can you do that? In the polarized political environment that we live in, it's been very challenging on bail to modulate and to make some of those after changes. If you do that with taxes and it's the same thing, you raise the taxes, you pay for good stuff, you get free buses, you get universal childcare. If you do cross the line, and I'm not sure this would cross it, but if you did, can you then modulate and come back and fix it? And would you be able to bring everybody back to the table? These are the complicated questions they'll have to deal with over the next year or two. I do think There will be some revenue increases. Maybe not this year, but next year. And how do you calibrate that? How do you put it in the right place? Where do you draw the line? Those things don't happen in a campaign. It's easy in a campaign to say, raise taxes on the rich or no new taxes. It's when we're now in the, you know, in these rooms in Albany that we've got to figure out, where do you draw the line? How do we calibrate it properly and if we overcorrect, can we come back and fix it and rebalance? These aren't easy decisions to make. These guys. You know, there's a reason this doesn't happen quickly or aggressively. You want to try and do it. Right. A lot of the times we over correct to inaction way too much. And so this is the push and pull that you've got. And I think the mayor is saying, let's go a little further. Everybody else is pushing back. Let's see where they land. Maybe not this year, but next year in a meaningful way.
- [36:07]
B
Well, a few things on that one, as you're getting at, when you say we want new revenue and it will be dedicated towards X and Y deliverable, that's, you know, a value proposition that is extremely concrete. As long as you're delivering on that. Those deliverables. Right. If you quickly take that increased tax revenue money and your, you know, making childcare much more accessible to people, you're making the buses run fast and free and, you know, all that stuff, you know, that's. That's a lot clearer. You know, I can't believe you brought up bail reform. We just had a. We just had a mayoral hearing where bail reform wasn't mentioned, maybe for the first time in forever. But, you know, to compare. Right. You know, that's a very different type of policy where even if bail reform was working immediately, a, the Democrats had very quickly lost a lot of the PR media battle around it. And even if it's working well, you know, you're not always going to see any concrete, you know, benefit for many New Yorkers right away in a way you could on some of these other things. The.
- [37:14]
A
I mean, I. Honestly, Ben, I do. I don't. I think we in politics tend to hear squeaky wheels more than we hear everything else. Right. When you're in City hall, you're surrounded by advocates on the steps of City hall and you hear a lot of that noise on both sides of these issues. And I would say you could feel and see the effects of bail reform positively, immediately. I think congestion pricing is almost the exact same thing. You had loud voices on both sides, you know, fighting for, against it. You know, we don't. I don't hear a lot about congestion pricing at all. I've got family and friends out in Long island and New Jersey who are thrilled with what the central business district looks like now. And I think we're finally seeing. Not finally, it's been less than a year. We're seeing results from the new funding in terms of improvements to the subway system. So the most important thing, and I think you said this very smartly, is when you have big, controversial actions that are tied to specific things that drive improvements, the controversy melts and fades away. I think, relatively quickly, a little bit more complicated with bail reform. But, you know, the smoking ban we all lived through in the early 2000s, congestion pricing, I think now, three or four years later on bail reform, the revenue raisers from four or five years ago, if you see improvements and if the city's getting better, people are fully on board with that. Pre K is a good example of that. You know, you concretely felt pre K. And for all the controversy about Bill Debasio and all the personal unpopularity and sort of disdain that a lot of New Yorkers had for him, the second half of that sentence today is, but you know what? He did a great job on pre K. And so if you can deliver things, this is the challenge for Mayor Mamdani. It's not. Don't take it for granted. If you can deliver on big things. You know, he got funding from Kathy Hogle for universal childcare. What does that look like six and nine and 12 months from now, two years from now? Do people feel more slots, reduce prices, all that? If you can deliver the thing, New Yorkers will forgive a lot of the controversy surrounding it.
- [39:31]
B
Well, and we're getting at one of the big themes, actually, that Mayor Mamdani has talked about generally, but actually spoke about very clearly in his prepared testimony, his opening testimony, and then in some of the back and forth, which was he wants to improve faith in government. And he's talked about that a lot. And I think he has a sense that you have to deliver, you have to make government work well and you have to show results because that's, you know, sort of the bottom line here. And people can go along with a lot of other stuff if. If they feel like city government and state government is actually working and. And producing those results. So I think, without a doubt, they have a decent perspective on that, you know, whether some of their proposals and, you know, plan solutions are the right ones. I think, you know, there's still plenty of debate about, around things like whether, you know, rent freeze and rent stabilized apartments is the best, you know, policy, etc. Or how you, how you do that plus, you know, relief for struggling landlords and other things. That's the complications of delivering. Yeah, I did think on the, just on the taxes, two more things. One, you know, there is a very interesting argument which Mamdani made in Albany and some other legislators brought up that, you know, many of those high earners and other others have gotten tax breaks from federal action in recent years. The one big beautiful bill under the new Trump administration and Republican Congress, you know, led to more tax decreases for many. And so, you know, there's, there's interesting arguments there. The other thing though is there's a $260 billion state budget here. Right. So this is another area where like Cuomo said a dozen years ago, Hochul has the ability to say I can find you more revenue for city funding without tax increases. And that's what she did on childcare. Right. She did that immediately here to undercut some of this to do that. And they're also, I'll note, Even beyond the $260 billion state budget are other ways to raise revenue that the state is always finding through different fees and, you know, other things that are not personal income tax increases or corporate income tax increases. So everyone, you know, listening should be on the lookout for some of that too. There's ways for the state to bring in new revenue like it's done with casino licenses and, you know, different fees on online purchases and all sorts of things that the state can do that the city can't, by the way.
- [42:01]
A
Yeah.
- [42:02]
B
You know, that could, that could also factor into this picture and make some of the tax increase discussion on personal income taxes and corporations, you know, kick down the can down the road a bit. I will also note on that front though, you, you got at this a minute ago. Mamdani's allies are planning an enormous march and rally in Albany on February 25th. They're trying to get 10,000 people on buses to go up there very directly on the issue of increasing taxes to, you know, provide services and help the city. So this, these debates are nowhere near done here. And, and again, we have to see what the legislature really fights for as well.
- [42:43]
A
Yeah, I mean, we heard from Senator Gonardis today and sounds like some ridiculous examples on tax cuts, on gold bars and some other things. So, yeah, I think, I think certainly there are ways to get at revenue that are not directly about these very controversial tax increases. The politics of this, you know, let's see how that plays out over the rest of the session. I, I think, I think everybody's playing their role here. And you, you notice the governor sort of reacted that way when this initial, you know, Adams budget crisis press conference happened in City Hall a few weeks ago. She said, well, you know, he campaigned on higher taxes and he's still saying he wants higher taxes. I'm not, not reacting much to that. You know, that's at least her public posture on how that all went down. I imagine they'll have a similarly non plussed reaction to the rally, but there'll be significant legislative allies and pushes. You know, we've got a leadership spot coming open in the state Senate. Mike Gennaro has been a consistent supporter, not as a democratic socialist, but someone who represents a lot of them in Queens is, you know, not running for reelection. His. We'll have a new leader in that spot that I think can help shape a lot of these things. You know, it'll be for, for guys like us, it'll be exciting to watch over the next few weeks as, as they continue that conversation.
- [44:12]
B
Yeah. I will note that in Mamdani's testimony, he also credited the governor for the planned investment towards universal childcare. He talked about welcoming her proposal for a four year extension of mayoral control of city schools with no changes to it, which one or two legislators brought up as interesting, especially since when Mamdani was in the assembly, he was apparently questioned mayoral control of city schools pretty vociferously. And we saw that has been a reversal from what he said he would do if elected mayor, that he would seek to end that system or reform it in some way. And now he's supportive of it while he says he'll increase parent engagement through that system. But he expressed gratitude for the governor's proposal of a four year extension of mayoral control of city schools as well as her proposed increase in school education foundation aid to the city. He again reiterated he's excited about her proposal to reform the state's environmental review laws to allow more housing. Housing to be built especially in dense areas and near transit and so forth.
- [45:26]
A
Very important.
- [45:26]
B
Yeah, yeah. And I'm going to do a whole separate podcast on that exact issue, so we don't need to get into that. But he, you know, he, so he thanked her for a number of things. Again, part of the basis of this hearing is for reaction to the governor's executive budget proposal that the legislature is chewing on, and then they're hearing a lot of testimony on. So, you know, he noted those things and other things. He was thankful that she's working on increasing immigrant protections from federal immigration enforcement and other things. Now, when we got to the Q and A with legislators, we've hit on some of this already, but anything else stand out to you in terms of what you heard brought up, themes, things you didn't hear brought up? I'll just say maybe while you're thinking about that for another minute, one thing that was fascinating to me, I mentioned how the mayor came in, and in his initial testimony, he said, you know, the $12 billion budget gap that we were projecting a few weeks ago, 2 billion in the current fiscal year and then 10 in the next, is now down to 7 total. Basically, the current fiscal year gap is eliminated by the higher revenue, and now the next year gap is down to 7 through higher than projected revenue, a billion dollars in projected savings that they are thinking they'll get, which could easily be higher, by the way, depending on how they push agencies to identify savings. But they're already slotting in $1 billion of agency savings on, you know, reducing unnecessary programs and things that are not working or outdated and other agency savings and so forth. One thing that was fascinating to me is he kept talking about, okay, to further close the gap, you know, we need these tax increases as well as just more stimulus, a better state, city fiscal relationship, increased funding from the state in a variety of ways that have shifted over the years and so forth. The legislators asked him repeatedly about some of this, and they asked a lot about whether the tax increases were really necessary or, you know, what specific increases he was calling for and would support. But there was very little that really got into the nitty gritty of, okay, you've got a $7 billion gap now for next fiscal year. Let's talk more about, like, okay, if you get these tax increases, how much of the $7 billion does that take care of? Where do you get the rest for, you know, the other 3 or 4 billion if it only takes care of half, which I think is what he said, you know, there was very little sort of real probing on that fiscal issue, and there was a lot more discussion of policy issues and. And, you know, just focusing on the tax stuff. So that struck me that there wasn't really a great legislative conversation there around that remaining gap. Of course, the mayor is about to release his preliminary budget next week, which will be balanced. So we'll see more detail there.
- [48:19]
A
So that was this. This is. Yeah, I mean, this is what I was going to. When you said. What else. Yeah, this is the thing. Right. And. And I think a little bit their. Their strategy on the tax increases and on the gap is. Is sort of substantively unsustainable. They have to release a budget by February 17th. By law, that budget has to be balanced. We heard the first Deputy Mayor, Dean Fulham today say very clearly, you know, we're going to meet our gap standards, what the Financial control board instituted 50 years ago as the, you know, gold standard of city budgeting that we do here in New York city. So on February 17, they will have a budget that has no gap in it. Now, the $7 billion question, which six hours ago was a $12 billion question, is how do they close that gap? Are they closing that gap solely by this sort of mix of what they said today? Wall street bonuses are higher than we thought. We have more revenue on the baseline estimate. We have a billion dollars in savings. We have in year reserves that we're tapping. That's all easy to get you from 12 down to 7. Is the rest of this $7 billion gap going to require them dipping into reserves that are not in your reserves, but are the ongoing reserves that exist in the out years, are they going to put more savings than the billion dollars they have in? Is there going to be a line in that budget that says we expect new tax revenue from the state to close this budget, which would be highly unusual and I think a little bit not consistent with the sort of spirit of the gap principles. If they're saying we're relying on additional state funding in this without the governor or somebody else telling them that that funding is going to be there. So this is the strategic conundrum that they're in. And, you know, this isn't a mistake on their part. It's just the reality of the calendar and the budgeting systems.
- [50:24]
B
They. They have an issue.
- [50:25]
A
What does this look like on February 17th? And do they give their leverage away by not putting additional state funding in and sort of showing that they can close the gap, or do they try to sustain that leverage with an additional state budget number in there that creates some antagonism from the governor's office in the legislature, and maybe get some of the number crunchers, bean counters in the world who watch the city budget regulators, to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that is not how you're supposed to do this. That's not a balanced budget.
- [51:00]
B
Right.
- [51:00]
A
So they're in a tough position in the lead up to February 17th.
- [51:05]
B
So I think that's brilliantly laid out. My thoughts, in addition to some of that are a, there is room for some optimism on their part that goes beyond what's in Hochul's executive budget, that there will be some resetting of some of these funding formulas and ways in which the state aids the city. That is not necessarily tax revenue, as I was getting at before, but a lot of those specifics. You know, whether it's health care reimbursement, you know, there's a variety of mechanisms here where, as Mamdani has pointed out, some of those things did shift under Andrew Cuomo as governor. You know, there's been different formulas that have shifted over the years and ways in which the state has looked to sort of both increase funding to the city in certain ways and then reshape the relationship in other ways that has not left the city so well off. So there's maybe some reason for optimism that you get more money from Albany in a variety of ways, not even dependent on the tax increases that you could potentially forecast there. But that's very hard to do as you're getting at. The other thing that I think will be potentially a way out of this, and again, this is just an estimation on my part. This is not based on any, you know, reporting or conversations with people on the inside right now is you can come before New Yorkers and say this, here's the other, you know, $3 billion we haven't factored for. And to close that gap, we're either going to have one of two things. We're either going to have an aggressive city saving and cutting program that would cut X, Y and Z from city agencies, or we're going to need that additional state revenue. But since we can't budget on that, here's an outline of where we're going to get savings from within city government. And that, you know, again, that's a gamble. We saw Eric Adams do some of that. You know, we've seen, we've seen other mayors do some of that. And that's where you can get, again, into some real tense, you know, exchanges with the city council, with the state legislature and with the governor. So, you know, we'll see what, what decisions they take, decide to make on that.
- [53:09]
A
Yeah, we, we, you know, we've been focused on the state, rightfully given what day today is. But, you know, the City council is a, is a significant participant in this process. You know, I did six budgets with the City Council, you know, at various times the, the amount of money that we added for the council went anywhere from 2 to $300 million in adoption to, you know, over a billion dollars at adoption for what the council adds to the budget. So, you know, you talk about a $12 billion gap. Is it really a 13 billion or an $8 billion gap once you factor in what you you're going to have to pay to make a deal with the city council? So I think you're absolutely right. There are some reliable ways to do this. How aggressive do they go on the savings? How much new state funding do they put in? You know, it's all this is going to be interesting and we're six days away from having the answer. And I think the real Albany dynamic is does it just totally gut their leverage for new taxes for all this? And this is their dilemma. This is why they chose to do this press conference out of step with when they have to make any formal budget presentation because they knew it was at a time when their revenue estimates put them in a place where they could be really aggressive about this. But the world may change in a week.
- [54:24]
B
Right. And there's a variety of other things that they have to think about that are some of these typically under budgeted expenses that they've been talking about as problematic budgeting, whether or not they are going to then try to put more of a cap on those things. So things like NYPD overtime that the mayor wants to basically do away with, you know, what's the budget going to include for that and then is he going to, you know, forecast that being way down and then have have his hands full meeting that target the city housing vouchers? You know, again, this has been an area significant growth that the Adams administration with the city council did agree on some under budgeting on what's the forecast on that? Are they going to try to put more caps on that that also relates to an ongoing lawsuit. I won't go into all the weeds on all this, but like, you know, those are some big decisions. All right. I only have you for a few more minutes here. John Paul Lupa, I really appreciate all the time, let me just throw out a few other things that were interesting from the hearing and then comment on any of those or just add your own final, you know, couple things that were interesting to you. But in terms of, you know, some of the sort of major themes of the discussion with the legislature, you know, there were a few things that repeatedly came up that we haven't mentioned yet. One was Lots of discussion of potentially getting property tax reform done, and the mayor saying they're committed to that. And then Budget Director Sharif Solomon, who is the executive director of a city advisory committee on the issue under Bill de Blasio, and Corey Johnson, the speaker of the City Council, saying they were getting ready to build on those recommendations from several years ago and advance a bill to the legislature on property tax reform. And, boy, would that be very interesting if that really gets moving. There were quite a few questions, as expected, about Mamdani's approach to Jewish New Yorkers fighting anti Semitism, questions about his new appointment to lead the office to combat anti Semitism. There were a number of times where some other legislators, like Senator Krueger, reminded people legislators to focus more on budget issues. But, of course, you know, they can bring up basically whatever they wanted. But Krueger had some very interesting comments as a Jewish New York City resident that she does not feel any less safe in Mamdani's New York, and she knows his appointee well and thinks that she'll do a good job. So that was an interesting theme. A variety of other things, as usual, legislators also threw out a hodgepodge of, like, local district issues they want the mayor to focus on and a variety of other things. One last thing I'll mention that I thought was really interesting was John Lew, Senator Liu from Queens, who endorsed Mamdani in the primary, sort of unexpectedly, and has worked with him on issues and is supportive of some of his tax plans and other things. He started asking Mamdani questions by saying, okay, it's February 11th, and it's time to stop blaming past mayors and governors, which sort of stopped me in my tracks while I was watching the hearing that he, you know, and he's. He's often very blunt with people, even people he likes and supports. So that was fascinating. And then he said, we want to hear more of your plans and your specifics, how you're going to deal with all these issues. And of course, his pet issue is his, you know, his bill that he passed several years ago to require smaller class sizes in city schools. And that is a huge challenge for the mayor of New York City to deal with, and a huge live issue. And then Lou also threw in a comment that he was a little surprised to see Mamdani's 180 on mayoral control of city schools, which Lou is, like, skeptical of, but never really wants to end. So there's a whole thing there that I've talked with him on this point podcast about several times. So that's my final thought on. On some of the stuff that jumped out at me. Anything you want to comment on there or add?
- [58:13]
A
I. Look, mayoral control schools is. Is, you know, kind of. Kind of like, you know, democracy. What's the famous saying? It's like. It's. It's the.
- [58:22]
B
It's the worst.
- [58:23]
A
It's the worst form of government, except for all the other. Right. It's like there's a million things wrong with mayoral control. If we ever tried to develop a system other than that, or, God forbid, go back to the old system of, you know, the individual boards, it would be a complete disaster. And it's very easy to point out the problems with it. It's very hard to say what the alternative would be. I went through a few of these renewals. I've heard all the complaints. I very confidently predicted during the campaign, as Mamdani said he opposed mayoral control, that he would be a supporter of mayoral control as mayor. I had no doubts of that without any personal knowledge of that. It just. It's the reality, and I think we'll hear complaints. It is what it is. You've got to do it. There can and should be some reforms to the system. I think you can go, you know, very deep into and maybe get too granular on what types of contracts the PEP has to approve or the types of PEP approvals you need for certain things. Can you require non mayoral appointees, at least one, to vote for something in order for it to pass other than Chancellor and add in more participation in democracy to that process? Sure. Will the system itself fundamentally change anytime in the near future? No. That's what it's going to look like. I think that's why Senator Liu struggles to articulate what the alternative would be, even though we've got problems with it. I. I found a couple things interesting. I think this mayor has a very special and important skill in relating to people. And I was constantly surprised by the personal dynamics between him and some of the legislators, particularly the ones who you wouldn't think, and I'm forgetting his name, but the city's chair from Erie county, who sort of opened up the hearing. Yeah, Burke, Patrick Burke, asking about, you know, the bills. And it was clear there was a warmth and friendship between the mayor and him. That. That, I think, went further than what you would think. For somebody who's from a part of the state that doesn't politically resemble what we have going on in New York City, I think that will serve him very, very, very well in this process. I, you know some of these smaller questions. Maybe it'll never come to fruition. I would watch a TV show about Alec Burchney trying to teach Zoran Momdani about socialism. I think their personalities would be very funny together. But there were some moments, and I think the new mayor does a very good job in diffusing the tension of those moments. But I want to see that stuff play out over months or years. Some of these fights that happen, particularly over antisemitism and some of the non New York City, more conservative legislators had with him. It's easy to dismiss these early on. There's a lot of pressure on the mayor to deliver on those issues. I think he will do a good job. I think Felicia was a wonderful choice to lead the antisemitism office, but this is going to be a constant point of conflict. And how well he and the appointees do to keep that on the back burner and off to the side will help immensely in the mayor winning some of the bigger fights on taxes and other things. You just want to keep those distractions to a minimum. He does it really well personally. He has the demeanor to do it very effectively. Will that continue in year two and three or throughout this budget process? Will be fascinating to see. I thought Senator Krueger very important ally to him in that process, sort of putting an end almost to that conversation. We didn't, we did not hear any talk of Israel, anti Semitism after she said, you know, that's enough. Let's, let's put that issue to the side. She has a lot of credibility on that issue and in the legislature. I thought that was very important for him today. I thought a deep change from the press conference two weeks ago where the mayor spoke for 95% of it. I don't know that Sharif and Dean even spoke at that press conference two weeks ago when he was talking about the budget today. He relied very heavily on them to answer questions, even ones that he'd given a general answer to. He let them go into detail. I think that's important to, you know, Bill de Blasio struggle with this at times. You want to show you know everything as mayor, but you can't. You've got to rely on that team and let them get into the nitty gritty and show what's really going on. I thought he did that very effectively today.
- [63:17]
B
Can I just say on that, I'll let you throw anything else. I did. As you know, as a close watcher of all of these times mayors have appeared before, you know, Albany in the last dozen years. It did feel to me, as expected, like he is unfamiliar with a lot of stuff in the city. And I think that's very real. I think he knows that. But it did, I mean, that, that did stand out to me. How often he was deferring. I don't, I'm glad he did. I'm glad he didn't try to sort of filibuster through some of that or pretend he knew things he didn't know. But it was pretty glaring to me how often he needed to do that. And it's great. It's why these, you know, it's why he's made some of these appointments. But it's absolutely clear that he has, you know, a lack of depth on city governance in a way that we, we sort of knew he would.
- [64:09]
A
I don't, I mean, I didn't interpret it that way. I, you know, I thought they're there the majority of the time. He gave the philosophical answer, the principle, and then let those guys handle the detail. And honestly, and I say this genuinely, I wish Bill de Blasio did that more. He felt the need to demonstrate that in depth knowledge in a way that, you know, that's Dean and Sharif and Jamila's job. They're up there to give those answers. Let them handle it. You're the guy who is the closer. You're the guy who, when we're making the deal, has to have that really good dynamic to make those calls into the governor's office and into the legislature. We don't need you being the one who fights back and forth with them on the details of that. When you're running that play effectively, you want him out of that stuff. Now, maybe he didn't know the answers to some of those questions, but as somebody who ran an intergovernmental affairs operation and did these things, I don't want my principal fighting with you on the details of your proposal. Let him tell you, yes, we agree with you. We're looking into it. We're doing that. And let me, or Dean or Shareef, in this case, Jamila, Simonya, whoever you've got up there, let them have the fight over the details, and you be the guy come in and close the deal. We want as much goodwill between you and those legislatures as we can possibly maintain.
- [65:31]
B
Totally fair. Just to be clear, I wasn't necessarily saying on the fight, just even the explanation of certain things. Or are you going to address this issue or that issue. But, but I, but I hear you. Point taken. I'm going to throw four fast things out to end here, let's go. And then comment on any of these. Or just say it's time to go. I know you have to go. One something you just got at that is interesting is all these legislators with a hodgepodge of issues, some of them in the city with localized concerns. One of the first big tests for the mayor is do your people actually follow up on those? You know, he repeatedly said, we're going to get back to you, we're going to follow up. They need to do that to manage those relationships as you're getting at. And that'll be an interesting test because it might not take a year, but even if it takes a year, you could get into this hearing next year and have these legislators up there with a totally different tone if they don't feel like their concerns were actually followed up on 100% to Totally Agree. I thought it was really interesting. Two assembly members from the Bronx, Jackson and Septimo, brought up really just sort of interesting Bronx focused concerns about opportunity and employment and education and so forth. And I think we just heard the police commissioner talk about increasing attention on the Bronx because of higher crime rates there than the other boroughs, which is a long standing issue. Same thing with unemployment and poverty in the Bronx. And obviously all of that is related. So that was really interesting to me. Very interesting exchange with Senator Leroy Comri on pushing for free buses, which Mamdani has sort of put to the side. But Comri really wanted to talk about it and push it forward. So that was interesting that there's clearly some legislators that do want to work on the free buses issue. And then you got at my last one, which was the exchange with assembly member Brooke Krasny from Southern Brooklyn, who was talking about socialism. And I thought it was actually a missed opportunity. Mamdani made a joke about Astoria, you know, being represented by socialists at all levels. But I thought it was actually a missed opportunity for him to say, you know, my vision, you know, my version of democratic socialism is not what you and others have lived under. Under what is. Is essentially, you know, more of a communist system and sort of delineate that for people in a public setting. Because I think there's a huge difference between the types of socialism the two of them were talking about, you know, that Mamdani didn't, didn't.
- [67:55]
A
I totally agree with that last point. I will just say from a strategy perspective, you do not want an Exchange with Alec McRasney over what is socialism to dominate the coverage. And it had the potential to do that. So. So you're right. But I think he probably did the right thing there. I think buses, if I could just for a minute. And I've got a. I've got to run after that. I think unrealistic to think they'd have a significant budget win on buses this year, given the focus on childcare and all that. But he can't let it fall by the wayside. There was a story, I think it was yesterday that he's asked Governor Hochul and I don't know if this was confirmed or a rumor report, but I just think this idea is so brilliant and I hope this is true. As the pilot, instead of picking a route or a borough or a few routes or whatever, to do the five free weeks of buses during the World cup in New York City I think is just so smart. It's a really important moment for the city, for on the international stage. I know the games are being played in New Jersey at MetLife and but, you know, thousands of people will stay in the city. We'll have a lot of tourists here. You want them moving around and going to restaurants and doing shopping. The opportunity to let folks ride the buses for free during that time I think is really smart. And I hope that comes out of this budget negotiation as a combination of a pilot or a tourist thing. I think it's a very high profile way to demonstrate he still cares about the issue that probably has a very limited cost to it, at least somewhat limited in the big, big ticket, and can maybe show some of the speed improvements that he's talked about. And so I know that they're still working on it. It's not going to go away. I think it's probably a next year thing in the budget, but I really hope they do that. I think it's an exciting and creative way to deliver at least partially on a campaign promise and an important issue to him in a year where he's probably not going to get the whole thing.
- [69:58]
B
Very, very. It is very interesting. I think that was a scoop, maybe in the Daily News talking about that. And we'll see if they actually announced that proposal. You know, that's one of those toothpaste out of the tube type of things. But, you know, but I agree with you. Doing exciting, experimental things around the World cup and other things like that is clearly a smart thing to be thinking about. Let me let you go, John Paul Lupo. Really appreciate the time and thoughts from a veteran of these, these Tin cup days. I was great that you could do this. Thanks for joining me and stay in touch.
- [70:29]
A
Appreciate it, Ben. Thank you. Love to come back soon.
- [70:32]
B
All right.
- [70:33]
A
All right by.
- [70:47]
B
It, Sam.