Mayor Zohran Mamdani launches push to tax the wealthy as he blames NYC $12 billion budget gap on Adams

Josephine Stratman, New York Daily News on Jan 28, 2026

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NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani lambasted former Mayor Eric Adams for a “fiscal crisis” on Wednesday, laying the blame on Adams for a budget gap that could exceed $12 billion. The mayor’s remarks came as he launched a public push on Gov. Kathy Hochul to raise taxes for the city’s richest residents and corporations and to send billions more NYC’s way.

“Former Mayor Eric Adams handed the next administration a poisoned chalice,” the mayor said at a City Hall press conference Wednesday afternoon. “… This is not just bad governance, it is negligence, and now the responsibility falls upon us to protect working New Yorkers from paying the price.”

New York City could be facing up to a $12.6 billion budget deficit over two fiscal years, the mayor warned — although that number doesn’t take into account extra revenues from Wall Street that are expected to shrink that gap.

Mamdani’s press conference comes after the city’s comptroller, Mark Levine, sounded the alarm on a $12.6 billion budget gap for this fiscal year and the next. The mayor said Wednesday that City Hall’s early estimates fall in line with Levine’s number.

Mamdani argued that the Adams administration severely underbudgeted the costs of services like cash assistance and homeless shelters.

Pressed for details on how he’d balance the budget, the mayor said he’d avoid budget cuts but examine every dollar in city spending to find “efficiencies.” He promised more details in the preliminary budget, due Feb. 17.

“We will not shrink from this moment. We will not succumb to small ideas. We will meet this crisis with the bold solutions It demands. That means recalibrating the broken fiscal relationship between the state and the city, and it means that the time has come to tax the richest New Yorkers and most profitable corporations.”

Mamdani also laid some blame on ex-Gov. Cuomo, though he didn’t mention the City Council or the current governor.

Ex-Mayor Adams accused Mamdani in turn of “throwing tantrums and pointing fingers instead of admitting he misled the public.”

“Every budget passed under my administration was approved by the City Council, including Mayor Mamdani’s City Council comrades,” Adams messaged the Daily News. “And thank God I was there, because their reflex has always been to spend first and ask questions never.”