Progressive leaders keep inheriting great American cities and running them straight into the ground. It’s almost impressive at this point — the speed at which ideology replaces competence. New York City, a place that once defined American grit and ambition, is now exhibit A in the case against letting socialists anywhere near a budget.

Here’s what makes it maddening. The city is staring down a catastrophic budget gap. Its jails are overflowing. Corrections officers are getting attacked on the job daily. You’d expect the mayor to roll up his sleeves and handle the basics. Instead, Zohran Mamdani has other plans entirely.

From The Post Millennial:

Socialist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani has formed a new “mass engagement” arm in his office, which will pay almost $2 million dollars in six-figure salaries to over a dozen activist staffers. This comes as Mamdani has been facing a budget shortfall in the Big Apple of over $5 billion.

Mamdani is looking to bring 14 people into the “Mayor’s Office of Mass Engagement” which aims to carry out the goals of the Democratic Socialists of America, per the New York Post. “The Soviet politburo called, they want their job announcement back,” one Democrat strategist said about the job postings.

Read that again. Nearly $2 million in taxpayer money — not for cops, not for firefighters, not for a single pothole — routed to fourteen political operatives tasked with advancing the Democratic Socialists of America’s agenda from inside City Hall. That’s your money, New York.

The salaries are generous, to put it mildly. Positions range from $80,000 to $150,000, with longtime DSA member Tascha Van Auken collecting over $250,000 as commissioner of the new office. Her previous gig? Mamdani’s campaign field director. Funny how that works. The job descriptions reference “co-governance” — language lifted almost verbatim from a DSA co-chair’s manifesto calling on socialists to “infiltrate” the city’s political ranks.

“Why doesn’t the mayor just call it the ‘Director of Re-Election Political Get Out of the Vote Using Government Money’ and just get it over with?” one Democrat operative asked. And that’s his own side talking.

Meanwhile, officers are getting slashed

While the socialist mayor funnels millions into his activist apparatus, the people who actually keep New York safe are hanging on by a thread. The Department of Correction fields just 5,600 uniformed officers — well short of the 7,060 positions the budget supposedly funds. Over 800 are eligible to walk out the door tomorrow with a retirement package. Nobody could blame them.

Last year, officers absorbed more than 660 assaults. That includes 260 “splashing” attacks — inmates hurling cocktails of urine, feces, and blood into guards’ faces. Twenty-five female officers were sexually assaulted. Just last week, a female officer was slashed directly below her eye by an inmate.

These are the people Mamdani can’t be bothered to fund. But a DSA loyalist with a clipboard and a “co-governance” title? Here’s $150,000.

A city bleeding red ink

The fiscal picture is somehow even worse than Hizzoner admits. Three major bond-rating agencies — Moody’s, Fitch, and Kroll — have slapped a “negative” outlook on New York City’s finances. City Comptroller Mark Levine, no conservative himself, pegs the real budget gap north of $7 billion. He’s publicly opposing Mamdani’s scheme to drain $1.2 billion from the city’s emergency reserves.

The mayor’s grand solution? Raise taxes. On the wealthy first, then on everybody else if Albany doesn’t cooperate. Spend more, tax more, repeat. It’s the only page in the socialist playbook.

This is what happens when a city hands its keys to an ideologue. Not gulags and five-year plans — just six-figure salaries for party loyalists while corrections officers dodge shanks and the credit rating circles the drain. New Yorkers didn’t elect a mayor. They got a commissar with a taxpayer-funded entourage.

Key Takeaways

• Mayor Mamdani is funneling nearly $2 million in taxpayer money to socialist “mass engagement” activists.
• New York’s corrections officers face violent assaults daily amid critical understaffing.
• Three bond-rating agencies have flagged NYC’s finances as the budget gap balloons past $7 billion.
• Mamdani’s spending reveals a leader building a political machine, not governing a city.

Sources: The Post Millennial, AOL