Damon (5:39)
Yeah. So. Well, lots to do, lots of news to get into. What even is that? Diaper diplomacy. A busy Thursday night, but that. Four minutes past the hour. Let's do what we always do. Well, we try to always do. Almost didn't have one tonight because I just wasn't feeling it. But let's do tonight's first word. Well. So instead of not doing one, I decided we should lay out the bitter truth. A lot of talk about New York City these days. And New York City, in my estimation, is staring down the barrel of a financial apocalypse that's about to swallow it whole. The new socialist Nepo baby. With a PhD in demagoguery and a heartfelt of hate for America. The Big Apple won't just be rotting, it will be deliberately poisoned from the inside out. That's right. Defund the cops. That's up. Hand out free everything that's coming. Thumbs up to antisemitism in the streets. That's coming. That's the flashy stuff, the ideological fireworks. But the real explosion, it's coming in the ledgers, the budgets, the cold hard math that these ivory tower Marxists treat like optional homework. And math, my friends, doesn't care about your feelings or your slogans. It doesn't negotiate with utopians. First, the myth of these New York Democrat elites love to pedal is this quote. We send way more money to Washington than we get back. I mean, please. That so called 60 billion contribution? It's just a federal income taxes paid by individual New Yorkers. Taxes that go to Uncle Sam. No matter if you're sipping lattes in Manhattan or fishing in Fargo. It ain't a dime of it that goes into the city's piggy bank. It doesn't shield them from cuts. It's irrelevant. It's pure smoke and mirrors to puff up their egos and beg for more handouts. Now the real story. New York is already drowning before the jihadist even grabs the reins, the 2025 budget. A whopping $119.8 billion structural deficit right out of the gate. 5 to 6 billion a year with zero plan to how to plug that hole. They're hooked on 10.5 billion in direct federal aid. And guess what? President Trump has vowed to slash that to the absolute bare legal bones. These socialists think that's immovable. Childish. American taxpayers aren't ATMs for democratic experiments in failure. But hold on. The real lifeline is from Albany. 20.7 billion a year propping up New York City. Why that at risk? Why is that at risk even with Democrats running the state show? Well, we've heard from the Governor, because New York State is a house of cards built on quicksand. They're staring down 27 billion in deficits from 2027 to 2029. State debt exploding 70% from 56 and a half billion to 95 and a half billion in just the blink of an eye. The comptroller himself calls it backdoor borrowing. Sneaking around the state constitution that demands voter approval for debt. Illegal? You bet. And that's the cash that's keeping New York City afloat. Federal aid to the state? You ask about 98 and a half billion. 40% of their budget. Washington's already signaling 5 billion in cuts. And with national debt over 39 trillion, that axe is going to be sharpening. Yet Mondami is out there taunting the Trump administration like a schoolyard bully. That's not a brilliant strategy there, comrade. Now here comes the killer blow. Revenue collapse. The city leans on 40,000 top earners. The 1% for 45% of its 17 and a half billion dollars of personal income tax. That's 8 billion from a handful of golden geese. Mandami's message. Well, you guys better pay up, suckers, or else half of them are going to bolt. Gone. Poof. Four billion. Say goodbye forever. The New York Post says a million are going to probably flee. Forget the riff raft. The top 20,000 high flyers alone will create the whole Fiscal Foundation. Businesses. 13 billion in direct taxes. But if you tie in activity, $30 billion easily. 10 big Wall street firms pack up. 5 billion will be vaporized. Tech means they don't need Manhattan anymore. Hostile taxes? No thanks. Exit stage left. Mondami's fantasy. Squeeze 4 billion extra from those 40,000 earners, 5 billion from the top 1,000 businesses and pretend that nobody leaves. Well, every exec, every mogul faces a no brainer. Cough up billions or relocate and pocket billions. They'll choose door number two, every time that nine billion in new taxes never happens, instead of 10 billion in lost revenue happens piled on five and a half billion in deficits, crumbling state aid, vanishing federal bucks, spending skyrocketing universal daycare, free buses, government grocery stores, welfare on steroids, a bloated bureaucracy, billions in promises that they can't fund today, let alone tomorrow. This is the socialist endgame. Crash the system, then blame capitalism. Force out the wealthy, tank property values to turn, turn New York city into Detroit 2.0. Make everyone a government dependent. Destroy the private sector to grab power. That's his affordable New York. Affordable only if you like breadlines. And who's going to pay? Not the elite ideologues in their ivory towers. No, it's going to be the working class. Fewer jobs, skyrocketing prices, services in the toilet, crime will be through the roof and opportunity, most importantly will be evaporated. Folks, this isn't a downturn. It's a man made cataclysmic destruction, ideologically trampling arithmetic. It doesn't work. New York's heading into its worst fiscal Nightmare since the 70s. But this time the enemy comes from within. Intentional accelerating. And it will be spectacular. And that's tonight's first word.
