Good morning:
Now that New York City residents and workers are officially preparing for a Mamdani mayoralty, the city’s press corps should as well.
At City Journal, seven scholars at the Manhattan Institute offered up the questions they are most eager to hear Zohran Mandani answer. Among those scholars is fellow Danyela Souza Egorov, who wants to know how the mayor-elect will deal with the large number of NYC schools that are too small to be financially viable or that have downright dismal education outcomes? Senior fellow Stephen Eide is concerned about how psychiatric care plays into Mamdani’s promise of borough-based jails. And former NYC planner and senior fellow Eric Kober asks how Mamdani will balance the need to induce private developers to build mixed-income housing, the intention to meet union wage demands, and the promise to expand affordable housing?
Also in City Journal, fellow Rafael A. Mangual evaluates the findings of three empirical studies on the impact of so-called “bail reform” in New York City. Defenders of bail-reform laws, which eliminate cash bail for most criminal offenses, will tout the study’s finding that it reduced recidivism rates overall. Dig deeper, and the studies reveal that reform “was consistently associated with worse outcomes” for the most dangerous, high-risk defendants.
Crime often plagues the neighborhoods and communities that can least afford it, including areas with high concentrations of racial minorities. In UnHerd, cities policy analyst Santiago Vidal Calvo wrote about why black and Hispanic voters swung for Mamdani in the general election, after backing former governor Andrew Cuomo in the primary. Part of the explanation lies in his message on affordability. In Bloomberg, senior fellow Allison Schrager weighs in on one aspect of affordability—home ownership, and how it is driving economic populism in America.
Finally, fellow Robert VerBruggen’s new issue brief proposes several ways to improve Congress’s approach to spending and taxation; specifically, to fix the “reconciliation” process, which allows a Senate majority to avoid a filibuster on certain budget bills. This process was once intended to promote fiscal discipline but has instead become a tool for partisan legislation that worsens deficits. VerBruggen shows how the current framework should be amended to restore transparency, reestablish limits on deficit increases, and realign congressional incentives toward responsible budgeting.
Continue reading for all these insights and more. Kelsey Bloom Editorial Director |
|
|
A Better Byrd Rule: How to Fix the Senate's Reconciliation Process By Robert VerBruggen | Manhattan Institute
In a new issue brief, fellow Robert VerBruggen argues that Congress's budget reconciliation process is broken. The current system incentivizes the governing party to focus its efforts on budget bills rather than other legislation, because only a budget bill can clear the Senate with a simple majority. In practice, this often results in deficit-worsening tax cuts and spending hikes. The reconciliation process relies on weak norms and opaque decisions by the Senate parliamentarian, who determines which provisions are sufficiently budget-focused through closed-door "Byrd bath" meetings. This has enabled both parties to pass deficit-increasing legislation when holding congressional majorities.
VerBruggen’s proposed reforms include: mandating current-law baselines by statute; restoring the historical norm that reconciliation is for reducing the deficit, not merely changing it; demanding transparency in parliamentarian rulings; allowing fiscal "triggers" to automatically adjust rates if deficit targets are not met; and experimenting with relaxed rules for bills achieving significant deficit reduction. |
|
|
How Mamdani Flipped the Black and Hispanic Vote
By Santiago Vidal Calvo | UnHerd “In Tuesday’s mayoral election, Zohran Mamdani captured more than one million votes across New York’s diverse electorate. Most notably, the democratic socialist made huge inroads with black and Hispanic voters in the Bronx and Queens. “These two groups backed Andrew Cuomo heavily in the Democratic primary but swung to Mamdani in the general election. Once wary of him — particularly older voters and union households who doubted his promises on housing and transit — they ultimately decided to give him a chance.
“Mamdani achieved this by winning them over to his affordability agenda, mobilising an army of union-aligned canvassers across outer-borough neighbourhoods, and delivering his message in multiple languages.” |
|
|
Want to Buy a Home? It’s OK to Wait Till You’re 40 By Allison Schrager | Bloomberg Opinion “If owning a home is still the American dream, then it is increasingly out of reach for many young Americans. The average age of a first-time homebuyer is now 40, up from 33 just a few years ago and 29 in 1981. “To which I say: It’s just as well. Buying a home in your 20s is not the best financial goal, nor should it define the American dream of financial success.
“I am not here to minimize the housing affordability crisis, which is driving economic populism on the left and the right. And I acknowledge that homeownership has a special value in the US, both psychically (it is associated with “making it”) and financially (it has tax benefits, in the form of the home mortgage deduction, and real estate is seen as a good investment).” |
|
|
Seven Tough Questions for Zohran Mamdani
By Eric Kober, Ken Girardin, Danyela Souza Egorov, Ray Domanico, Stephen Eide, Rafael A. Mangual, Charles Fain Lehman | City Journal
“As Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani prepares to enter City Hall, he will need to transition from the work of campaigning to governing. The problems confronting the city—and Mamdani—are far bigger than his supporters have wanted to admit. Any new mayor must face hard questions. We spoke with several Manhattan Institute scholars about which ones they are especially keen to hear him answer.”
|
No, New York’s Bail Reform Has Not Made Us Safer
By Rafael A. Mangual | City Journal
“The basic questions of bail reform do not concern whether low-risk defendants should be released; most would agree that they should. Rather, the questions are: Should New York join every other state in the union in allowing judges to consider the risk a defendant poses to public safety when weighing pretrial release? And has New York’s bail reform facilitated the commission of crimes that wouldn’t have otherwise been committed under a different pretrial release policy? ...” Three new studies have “produced evidence suggesting that the answer to both questions is ‘yes.’” |
|
|
The City Journal Award By City Journal The annual City Journal Award recognizes individuals who have pushed back against destructive ideas and inspired efforts to protect liberty and unleash the potential of all Americans. This year we are pleased to honor Ben Shapiro, co-founder of the Daily Wire.
|
|
|
For more information and media requests, please contact
communications@manhattan.institute.
Are you interested in supporting the Manhattan Institute’s public-interest research and journalism? As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, donations in support of MI and its scholars’ work are fully tax-deductible as provided by law. |
|
|
Photo Credits: adamkaz/E+/Getty Images; Noah Berger/AP Photo; Anadolu/Getty Images; Wong Yu Liang/Getty Images; Catherine McQueen/Getty Images; Probal Rashid/LightRocket/Getty Images |
|
|
The Manhattan Institute works to keep America and its great cities prosperous, safe, and free. Manhattan Institute 52 Vanderbilt Ave. 3 floor New York, New York 10017
Want to change how you receive these emails?
Unsubscribe | Subscription Preferences
Copyright © 2025 Manhattan Institute, All rights reserved. |
|
|
|
