Kathy Hochul, who endorsed Mamdani’s free bus push, now says she cannot remove fare revenue because the entire transit system depends on the money

The ideal meets the bill and the math is not friendly.

Kathy Hochul who endorsed Mamdani, on his free bus polices,

“I cannot set forth a plan right now that takes money out of a system that relies on the fares of the busses and the subways.”pic.twitter.com/Xb7ztW9N7M

— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) November 9, 2025

I’ve watched 60 years of New York mayoral campaigns and the playbook never changes: promise everything for free, then blame the state when the money runs dry.

Mamdani’s running the best social media campaign I’ve ever seen, but once he’s in office, the math catches up. Try… pic.twitter.com/2SeL6LBYy9

— Kevin O'Leary aka Mr. Wonderful (@kevinolearytv) November 2, 2025

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 state come in at $12.7 billion to $20 billion per year. Just shy of half the state’s population lives in New York City so the cost of Mamdani’s plan could range from $6 billion up to $9 billion per year. Again, no one knows because the cost is dependent on a lot of factors including the wages paid to the caretakers.