New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani just delivered the kind of news that makes property owners reach for the aspirin. On Tuesday, he unveiled a staggering $127 billion city budget and casually floated the possibility that property taxes may have to go up to close a multibillion dollar deficit. Because when in doubt, send the bill to the people who actually own something.
BREAKING: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans to raise NYC’s property taxes for the first time in more than two decades and is looking to raid the city’s reserve funds to fill a roughly $5 billion budget gap, per Bloomberg.
— Leading Report (@LeadingReport) February 17, 2026
According to Bloomberg, Mamdani said the hike would only happen if lawmakers in Albany refuse to impose new taxes on wealthy residents or businesses operating in the city. In other words, if he cannot squeeze more out of the so called rich, he will simply widen the net. That net, of course, lands squarely on homeowners, small landlords, and working families who are already paying some of the highest taxes in the country.
“We do not want to have to turn to such drastic measures to balance our budget,” Mamdani said during a press conference at City Hall, as reported by Gothamist. “But faced with no other choice, we will be forced to.” That is the classic line from City Hall. We hate to do this, but you left us no choice. Somehow the only “choice” that never seems to make the list is cutting spending.
This would be the first significant property tax hike in roughly two decades. The last major increase came in 2003, when then Mayor Michael Bloomberg raised rates in the wake of the September 11 attacks. At that time, the city was dealing with a genuine emergency that had devastated lower Manhattan and shaken the entire country. Today, the emergency appears to be chronic overspending and a refusal to rein in government growth.
Mamdani ran as a democratic socialist, so none of this should come as a shock. Expansive government programs, ambitious spending plans, and the promise that someone else will foot the bill are part of the package. The problem is that in New York City, “someone else” usually turns out to be the middle class homeowner in Queens or the small business owner in Brooklyn.
To make matters worse, the city is still dealing with the fallout from last month’s winter storm. Snow paralyzed basic services like trash collection and ice removal. Residents watched as sanitation slowed to a crawl, even with one of the largest municipal budgets in the nation. If $127 billion cannot guarantee timely snow removal, people are going to ask what exactly they are paying for.
Any property tax hike would also require sign off from New York Governor Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers. That sets up a political showdown in Albany, where competing factions will argue over who should bear the burden.
For New Yorkers already stretched thin by high rents, rising crime concerns, and a crushing cost of living, the prospect of higher property taxes feels less like fiscal responsibility and more like punishment. The message from City Hall seems simple, if the math does not work, just raise the rate. At some point, taxpayers might decide they have had enough of being the city’s automatic ATM.
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