Andrew Cuomo proposed an affordability agenda on Thursday focusing on transit and meals — however mentioned his plan was extra real looking than the concepts being pressed by Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani.
Mamdani, in advocating at no cost buses, groceries and childcare, has pushed affordability to the middle of this 12 months’s mayoral marketing campaign. Cuomo Thursday proposed increasing town’s Honest Fares program to cowl free buses and trains for these at 150% of the federal poverty stage and increasing free subsidies for meals to these simply above the SNAP eligibility line.
He mentioned these proposals, introduced at a Midtown press convention, are extra real looking and efficient variations of Mamdani’s marketing campaign guarantees of free buses and city-run grocery shops.
Former governor and mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo is pictured throughout a press convention on Monday, Aug. 4, 2025, in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams / New York Every day Information)
The ex-governor has beforehand hinted at these proposals, however that is the best stage of element he’s supplied voters but on them.
He attacked Mamdani’s marketing campaign proposals, calling them pie-in-the-sky concepts that go too far and would solely serve to assist subsidize the lives of already rich metropolis dwellers. Mamdani’s proposals lean on growing taxes on corporations and rich New Yorkers.
“Why are you coming up with proposals that, once again, have taxpayers subsidizing rich people?” Cuomo mentioned. “Why would you subsidize rich people’s purchase of food? Why would you do that? Well, that’s the socialist ideology.”
Cuomo, who’s working an unbiased, misplaced within the Democratic major to Mamdani, now the favourite to win in November.
In response to Cuomo’s proposals, Dora Pekec, a spokesperson for Mamdani, mentioned that Cuomo has undertaken a “lifelong assault” on working-class New Yorkers and as mayor would take cues from Republican billionaires.
“Trusting Andrew Cuomo to address New York’s affordability crisis is the equivalent of tasking an arsonist with putting out a fire — he created this crisis,” Pekec mentioned. “Throughout his career, he systemically gutted our unions and social services, screwing over working people to please Republicans and billionaires.”
Mamdani has proposed to nix bus fares throughout town, and to create one free city-owned grocery retailer in every of the 5 boroughs.
Along with the transit and meals subsidies bulletins, Cuomo repeated his promise to hike up the minimal wage to $20 and reduce on revenue and property taxes for some New Yorkers.
Initially Printed: August 7, 2025 at 4:17 PM EDT
