NYC Mayor wants to slash budgets, freeze hiring to cover migrant costs

AP Photo/John Minchillo

New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ latest in a series of demands and proposals to address the ongoing illegal migrant crisis in the Big Apple has jaws dropping all across the municipal government. Having already sunk billions of dollars into handling all of the migrants with no end to the invasion in sight, Adams is now announcing budget cuts to most of the city’s other offices and programs, along with a freeze on hiring. He clearly knew the sort of impact this would have, telling the city that everyone “will feel these potential cuts — and they will hurt.” The Mayor continues to blame Albany and Washington for the city’s woes, but only because he wants them to send more money. He still refuses to demand that the border be sealed and the flow of illegals into New York come to an end. (Politico)

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Days after declaring the migrant crisis would destroy New York City, Mayor Eric Adams warned agency heads they must slash their budgets by 15 percent by next spring to compensate for increasing asylum-seeker costs.

The cuts, larger than any in recent history, are liable to generate outrage from city lawmakers, the institutional left and commissioners themselves — and appeared to double as a pressure campaign aimed at Albany and the federal government to help with the influx of more than 100,000 migrants since last year.

In a Saturday morning meeting with commissioners and budget officials, Adams indicated each agency will need to trim 5 percent from their spending by the time the Office of Management and Budget releases its next fiscal update in November…

Adams seems to be speaking disingenuously when he describes the staffing situation. He is looking at a hiring freeze but insists that layoffs aren’t part of the program. Members of the City Council aren’t buying it. One representative from Manhattan responded by saying, “Oh my God!” She then said that “no agency” could sustain a five percent cut and that she didn’t believe it could be done without layoffs.

It’s worth pointing out that she was talking about a single budget cut of five percent. Adams is projecting three cascading cuts of five percent each between now and next April. It sounds like he’s going to have a revolt on his hands before long.

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And then there’s the impact on the overall municipal budget. New York is currently facing a $10 billion budget gap next year. Projections show that gap growing for at least the next two years, largely due to irresponsible general spending and most of the federal pandemic money having already been spent. Let’s see… you’re ten billion in the hole but you’re already pouring twelve billion into dealing with the migrants. I wonder what might have been done differently?

We’ve seen plenty of interviews being done with working-class New Yorkers on the streets recently, many of them shown on Hannity and Laura Ingraham’s shows. There are a lot of angry people out there and they are not angry about Albany and Washington’s alleged failure to send enough money to deal with this crisis. They are angry that they are being overrun with migrants. As of this week, they are angry that their schools are being flooded with migrant children, many of whom do not speak English and have dubious documentation at best, and some of their own kids are being moved to “overflow classrooms” that were used during the pandemic. And they are angry that so much money is being poured into housing all of these illegal migrants’ needs when there are still homeless veterans on the streets who can’t find a place to sleep.

This news is not likely to make those people any less upset. And Eric Adams may not realize it yet, but he could very well be putting his own political neck on the chopping block here. Even in a city with such a vastly disproportionate majority of Democrats, there is only so much that people will put up with. If this situation isn’t properly addressed in a permanent fashion soon, Adams, Kathy Hochul, and Joe Biden might just accomplish what has long been thought impossible. They might turn New York red in 2024.

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John Stossel 12:30 PM | November 03, 2024
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