Cuomo introduced new plans Thursday for tackling the affordability disaster.
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo broke down his affordability platform at a Thursday press convention in Midtown. He known as the price of residing a “major issue” within the 2025 NYC Mayor’s race and provided options to plans pitched by Meeting Member and Democratic socialist nominee Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens).
Cuomo mentioned transportation, groceries, wages, and taxes, evaluating every tenet of his plan to Mamdani’s platform. The previous governor, who misplaced to Mamdani within the major, argued that the lawmaker’s affordability proposals — from making buses free to opening a pilot city-owned grocery retailer program — are irresponsible and unrealistic.
“Why would you subsidize the rich?” Cuomo requested, advocating for a 100% bus and subway subsidy for qualifying New Yorkers as an alternative of free buses for all. “I get the theory of socialism, and government provides, government controls. I get that. But besides playing socialist, why should New Yorkers subsidize the bus fare for rich people? Why? Why should they pay my bus fare?”
Cuomo additionally requested why the Meeting member’s plan without cost buses didn’t embody an identical plan for trains.
“What happened to subways? More people ride subways. You just leave that out?” Cuomo mentioned.
The presentation was the second of its variety from Cuomo, who has taken to sitting the candidate at a desk and presenting issue-oriented slides to reporters. This mimics his briefing fashion, which turned well-known through the COVID-19 pandemic’s lethal peak within the spring of 2020, the peak of his recognition.
Whereas Thursday’s theme was affordability — the difficulty that, by most accounts, determined the Democratic major — Cuomo equally introduced his plan Monday on crime and public security.
Thursday’s presentation didn’t embody Cuomo’s plans for housing, although the previous governor has mentioned he would search to construct or protect 500,000 new items of reasonably priced housing as mayor.
Cuomo fears unintended penalties of Mamdani imaginative and prescient
In his different plan to Mamdani’s pitch for city-owned and operated grocery shops, Cuomo advised improved meals advantages and subsidies for qualifying New Yorkers. The previous governor’s plan, he defined, would offer a meals subsidy for low-income New Yorkers who don’t meet the edge for SNAP advantages — the federal meals stamp program just lately slashed by President Donald Trump’s reconciliation invoice.
Cuomo would give $100 every month to folks making 130-150% of the federal poverty stage, a plan that will price town about $200 million annually, he mentioned. Cuomo contrasted that with Mamdani’s plan to open city-run grocery shops, which he claimed would put undue stress on non-public, small companies.
“You open a government-run grocery store, you’re going to be competing with the private grocery stores, you’re competing with the bodegas, maybe put them out of business, maybe cost jobs,” Cuomo mentioned.
The previous governor additionally famous prior examples of city-run grocery shops that failed, like one in Kansas Metropolis.
On wages, Cuomo additionally slammed Mamdani’s plan to boost the minimal wage from $17/hour to $30/hour by 2030, calling it unrealistic and harmful for companies and jobs. As an alternative, Cuomo proposed elevating the minimal wage to $20/hour.
The previous governor additionally criticized Mamdani’s company tax proposal, which advocates for bringing New York State’s company tax up from 7.25% to 11.50%. Along with NYC’s current company taxes, Cuomo mentioned, the transfer would drive firms out of town. Cuomo known as the proposal for a statewide company tax “naïve and a political impossibility.”
Cuomo described Mamdani’s monetary plans as an entire as “anti-business socialism.”
The Mamdani marketing campaign responded in an announcement to New York News, admonishing the previous governor’s views and suggesting that Cuomo as mayor would solely exacerbate the issues dealing with town. Additionally they hit him for his alleged telephone name concerning the race with President Trump, as reported within the New York Instances Wednesday; each Cuomo and Trump denied the decision occurred.
“Trusting Andrew Cuomo to address New York’s affordability crisis is the equivalent of tasking an arsonist with putting out a fire — he created this crisis,” Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec wrote in an announcement to New York News. “Throughout his career, he systemically gutted our unions and social services, screwing over working people to please Republicans and billionaires. Donald Trump’s chosen candidate for Mayor would only continue his lifelong assault on working people and do the bidding of the GOP billionaires funding his flailing campaign.”
