Now It Can Be Told: Mamdani's Plans Are Going to Be Wildly Expensive

Zohran Mamdani won his race to become the next mayor of New York City on Tuesday. On Thursday the NY Times published a story explaining just how expensive his plans for the city will be. Let's start with free child care: The biggest plan, by far, is free universal child care. The city already offers free preschool for all 4-year-olds and many 3-year-olds. Expanding child care to infants and to toddlers under 3 would be a major challenge. Mr. Mamdani’s administration would have to create new day care facilities and hire scores of child care workers. Mr. Mamdani’s campaign estimated that this could cost $6 billion annually. The Mamdani estimate is roughly equal to the annual cost of the NYPD, the largest police department in the United States. But it's important to note that no one really knows what this will cost. One left-wing group has estimated the cost for NYC could be as little as $2.5 billion per year but other estimates of the cost of expanding a program like his to the entire …