New Report: Socialism on the Hudson

Push to expand New York state government goes beyond Mamdani 

NEW YORK, NY — Considerable attention has been paid to a handful of socialist proposals from Zohran Mamdani, the state assemblyman and frontrunner in New York's mayoral election. But in a new report, Manhattan Institute fellow Ken Girardin cautions that observers are overlooking far more sweeping and destructive proposals percolating in Albany. 

Beyond Mamdani’s marquee promises, progressives in the state legislature are pushing measures that would vastly enlarge government’s power, with sweeping economic costs. These proposals include:

• Replacing private insurance with a state-run single-payer health-care system 
• Expanding state government’s involvement in the housing market, possibly by seizing private properties 
• Providing universal no-cost childcare 
• Reducing, if not eliminating, access to charter schools 
• Ceasing to collect tuition at state-owned universities 
• Taking over local gas and electric utilities and expanding redistributive rate schemes 
• Creating a state-run bank 

“If implemented together,” Girardin warns, “they would render New York economically uncompetitive—and unrecognizable.” His report details how these policies would:

• Increase New York’s already enormous tax burden, accelerating erosion of the tax base 
• Distort prices and availability of goods and services  
• Create opportunities for cronyism and abuse of taxpayer funds
• Fuel the weaponization of state government for ideological ends over effective outcomes

Click here to read the full report.