How ironic would it be if Zohran Mamdani fared better at cutting government waste than Elon Musk?
New York’s new mayor issued an executive order last week mandating that all of his city’s 100-plus agencies appoint a “chief savings officer” to look for efficiencies. These CSOs need to be named by Tuesday and deliver comprehensive plans within 45 days.
Looking to contain costs, not just raise more revenue, is the correct impulse in the face of a staggering $12.6 billion budget shortfall. It reflects an implicit recognition that waste, fraud and abuse undermine public support for the new government programs Mamdani dreams about. But the real test will be following through when his base rallies to protect sacred cows.
There is tremendous fat in New York City’s $118.2 billion budget. On education, for example, more is spent per-pupil ($42,168) than any by other city.
Musk and his team often moved carelessly, so much so that they risked giving efficiency a bad name. New York’s savings officers may have the reverse problem. As senior employees inside the agencies they’re supposed to scrutinize, they could be blind to waste they created.
There is also some danger this becomes a backdoor exercise to defund the police. What if Mamdani spares the bloated social services apparatus but claims that, say, NYPD wastes too much on overtime? Fortunately, Mamdani kept in place the respected police commissioner Jessica Tisch, who could push back if that happens.
For the mayor who declared that “there is no problem too large for government to solve,” the most likely outcome of this exercise is that any savings will be redirected toward new forms of wasteful spending. Overtaxed New Yorkers excited by the idea will probably have to keep waiting for real cuts, welcome as they would be.
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