Grant Hall

Mamdani is lying to you. He didn't turn a $12B budget deficit to $0. Spark notes: He inflated the deficit by $8B compared to Adams, brought it back down, then closed the rest with one-off bailout funds from Kathy Hochul who's desperate for a win. Funny thing is most of you morons believe it. The entire Democratic party is cheering a lie while "cooking" the books. New York City has been LEGALLY REQUIRED to balance its budget every single year since 1975. State law. The Financial Emergency Act. Passed after the city almost went bankrupt and Gerald Ford told them to drop dead. Mamdani's own budget message brags this is the 47th consecutive balanced budget. Bloomberg balanced. de Blasio balanced. Adams balanced. Giuliani balanced. Crediting Mamdani for balancing the budget is like crediting a taxi driver for stopping at a red light. Now the $12 billion. Adams left office with a projected FY27 gap of $4.69 billion. So where did the extra eight billion come from? Mamdani's own team. They walked in and moved hidden spending back onto the books: rental assistance, shelter ops, special ed reimbursements, NYPD overtime. Legit cleanup work. Then they ran to a podium and called it a deficit they inherited. They printed the number. Then they took credit for printing the number. How did they "close" it? Half came from Albany. Hochul wrote a check: $8 billion in state aid over two years. THIS IS NOT SUSTAINABLE. HE DIDN'T FIX ANYTHING. Mamdani's signature millionaire's tax? KILLED by Hochul. Corporate rate hike? KILLED. Free buses he ran on? KILLED. CityFHEPS expansion he campaigned on? He's in court right now fighting it. Then there's the pension trick. $1.64 billion of the "savings" comes from extending pension amortization from 2032 to 2037. The Citizens Budget Commission called it "a pension gimmick" that "balances this budget on the backs of future New Yorkers." William Glasgall, Volcker Alliance, said it "creates a debt that's more expensive than muni bonds." And the kicker. The budget IS NOT ADOPTED. Council votes June 30. The state budget the whole thing depends on was still not enacted as of last week. Out-year gaps under Mamdani's own numbers: FY2028: $7.1 billion FY2029: $8.5 billion FY2030: $9.8 billion The hole grew $5.4 billion in three months. So the real headline. Hochul cut a check. Future workers eat the pension bill. The structural deficit is BIGGER than the day he walked in. They didn't fix anything. They moved it. The math: $4.69B real gap. $8B from Hochul. $1.64B pension can-kick. $25.9B in future gaps. He didn't balance the books. But he's gambling your future and kicking the can down the road. So maybe stop celebrating. But what do I know. Good luck.

Mamdani is lying to you. He didn't turn a $12B budget deficit to $0. Spark notes: He inflated the deficit by $8B compared to Adams, brought it back down, then closed the rest with one-off bailout funds from Kathy Hochul who's desperate for a win. Funny thing is most of you morons believe it. The entire Democratic party is cheering a lie while "cooking" the books. New York City has been LEGALLY REQUIRED to balance its budget every single year since 1975. State law. The Financial Emergency Act. Passed after the city almost went bankrupt and Gerald Ford told them to drop dead. Mamdani's own budget message brags this is the 47th consecutive balanced budget. Bloomberg balanced. de Blasio balanced. Adams balanced. Giuliani balanced. Crediting Mamdani for balancing the budget is like crediting a taxi driver for stopping at a red light. Now the $12 billion. Adams left office with a projected FY27 gap of $4.69 billion. So where did the extra eight billion come from? Mamdani's own team. They walked in and moved hidden spending back onto the books: rental assistance, shelter ops, special ed reimbursements, NYPD overtime. Legit cleanup work. Then they ran to a podium and called it a deficit they inherited. They printed the number. Then they took credit for printing the number. How did they "close" it? Half came from Albany. Hochul wrote a check: $8 billion in state aid over two years. THIS IS NOT SUSTAINABLE. HE DIDN'T FIX ANYTHING. Mamdani's signature millionaire's tax? KILLED by Hochul. Corporate rate hike? KILLED. Free buses he ran on? KILLED. CityFHEPS expansion he campaigned on? He's in court right now fighting it. Then there's the pension trick. $1.64 billion of the "savings" comes from extending pension amortization from 2032 to 2037. The Citizens Budget Commission called it "a pension gimmick" that "balances this budget on the backs of future New Yorkers." William Glasgall, Volcker Alliance, said it "creates a debt that's more expensive than muni bonds." And the kicker. The budget IS NOT ADOPTED. Council votes June 30. The state budget the whole thing depends on was still not enacted as of last week. Out-year gaps under Mamdani's own numbers: FY2028: $7.1 billion FY2029: $8.5 billion FY2030: $9.8 billion The hole grew $5.4 billion in three months. So the real headline. Hochul cut a check. Future workers eat the pension bill. The structural deficit is BIGGER than the day he walked in. They didn't fix anything. They moved it. The math: $4.69B real gap. $8B from Hochul. $1.64B pension can-kick. $25.9B in future gaps. He didn't balance the books. But he's gambling your future and kicking the can down the road. So maybe stop celebrating. But what do I know. Good luck.

Mamdani is lying to you. He didn't turn a $12B budget deficit to $0. Spark notes: He inflated the deficit by $8B compared to Adams, brought it back down, then closed the rest with one-off bailout funds from Kathy Hochul who's desperate for a win. Funny thing is most of you morons believe it. The entire Democratic party is cheering a lie while "cooking" the books. New York City has been LEGALLY REQUIRED to balance its budget every single year since 1975. State law. The Financial Emergency Act. Passed after the city almost went bankrupt and Gerald Ford told them to drop dead. Mamdani's own budget message brags this is the 47th consecutive balanced budget. Bloomberg balanced. de Blasio balanced. Adams balanced. Giuliani balanced. Crediting Mamdani for balancing the budget is like crediting a taxi driver for stopping at a red light. Now the $12 billion. Adams left office with a projected FY27 gap of $4.69 billion. So where did the extra eight billion come from? Mamdani's own team. They walked in and moved hidden spending back onto the books: rental assistance, shelter ops, special ed reimbursements, NYPD overtime. Legit cleanup work. Then they ran to a podium and called it a deficit they inherited. They printed the number. Then they took credit for printing the number. How did they "close" it? Half came from Albany. Hochul wrote a check: $8 billion in state aid over two years. THIS IS NOT SUSTAINABLE. HE DIDN'T FIX ANYTHING. Mamdani's signature millionaire's tax? KILLED by Hochul. Corporate rate hike? KILLED. Free buses he ran on? KILLED. CityFHEPS expansion he campaigned on? He's in court right now fighting it. Then there's the pension trick. $1.64 billion of the "savings" comes from extending pension amortization from 2032 to 2037. The Citizens Budget Commission called it "a pension gimmick" that "balances this budget on the backs of future New Yorkers." William Glasgall, Volcker Alliance, said it "creates a debt that's more expensive than muni bonds." And the kicker. The budget IS NOT ADOPTED. Council votes June 30. The state budget the whole thing depends on was still not enacted as of last week. Out-year gaps under Mamdani's own numbers: FY2028: $7.1 billion FY2029: $8.5 billion FY2030: $9.8 billion The hole grew $5.4 billion in three months. So the real headline. Hochul cut a check. Future workers eat the pension bill. The structural deficit is BIGGER than the day he walked in. They didn't fix anything. They moved it. The math: $4.69B real gap. $8B from Hochul. $1.64B pension can-kick. $25.9B in future gaps. He didn't balance the books. But he's gambling your future and kicking the can down the road. So maybe stop celebrating. But what do I know. Good luck.

Mamdani is lying to you. He didn't turn a $12B budget deficit to $0. Spark notes: He inflated the deficit by $8B compared to Adams, brought it back down, then closed the rest with one-off bailout funds from Kathy Hochul who's desperate for a win. Funny thing is most of you morons believe it. The entire Democratic party is cheering a lie while "cooking" the books. New York City has been LEGALLY REQUIRED to balance its budget every single year since 1975. State law. The Financial Emergency Act. Passed after the city almost went bankrupt and Gerald Ford told them to drop dead. Mamdani's own budget message brags this is the 47th consecutive balanced budget. Bloomberg balanced. de Blasio balanced. Adams balanced. Giuliani balanced. Crediting Mamdani for balancing the budget is like crediting a taxi driver for stopping at a red light. Now the $12 billion. Adams left office with a projected FY27 gap of $4.69 billion. So where did the extra eight billion come from? Mamdani's own team. They walked in and moved hidden spending back onto the books: rental assistance, shelter ops, special ed reimbursements, NYPD overtime. Legit cleanup work. Then they ran to a podium and called it a deficit they inherited. They printed the number. Then they took credit for printing the number. How did they "close" it? Half came from Albany. Hochul wrote a check: $8 billion in state aid over two years. THIS IS NOT SUSTAINABLE. HE DIDN'T FIX ANYTHING. Mamdani's signature millionaire's tax? KILLED by Hochul. Corporate rate hike? KILLED. Free buses he ran on? KILLED. CityFHEPS expansion he campaigned on? He's in court right now fighting it. Then there's the pension trick. $1.64 billion of the "savings" comes from extending pension amortization from 2032 to 2037. The Citizens Budget Commission called it "a pension gimmick" that "balances this budget on the backs of future New Yorkers." William Glasgall, Volcker Alliance, said it "creates a debt that's more expensive than muni bonds." And the kicker. The budget IS NOT ADOPTED. Council votes June 30. The state budget the whole thing depends on was still not enacted as of last week. Out-year gaps under Mamdani's own numbers: FY2028: $7.1 billion FY2029: $8.5 billion FY2030: $9.8 billion The hole grew $5.4 billion in three months. So the real headline. Hochul cut a check. Future workers eat the pension bill. The structural deficit is BIGGER than the day he walked in. They didn't fix anything. They moved it. The math: $4.69B real gap. $8B from Hochul. $1.64B pension can-kick. $25.9B in future gaps. He didn't balance the books. But he's gambling your future and kicking the can down the road. So maybe stop celebrating. But what do I know. Good luck.

NOW - Trump: "There's no pressure. There's no pressure at all. We're going to have a complete victory [in Iran]."

Yesterday on the plane, the man seated next to me had cool American flag loafers and it made me sad that we are not being utterly deluged with America 250 merch. Send me the coolest things you've seen, please. I'm in the mood to purchase.