Mayoral Candidates with Financial Backgrounds Repeatedly Ask, “How Much Will That Cost?”

By Yehudit Garmaise

     When New York City’s eight Democratic mayoral candidates took to the debate stage last night, the discourse was defined by the recurring question, "How much is that going to cost?" which was asked by the candidates who have the financial backgrounds to understand how budgets work.

     Ray McGuire, the former global co-head of investment banking at Citigroup, for instance, found his voice and summed up the debate best, when asked about the economic recovery of the city, he called out the fiscal irresponsibility of many of the candidates’ many costly promises and plans, such as promising to hire 20,000 more teachers or to pay the rent of subsidized housing.

     “You have career politicians here who clearly don’t understand Economics 101, and how you manage a budget," McGuire said. “When they were asked what they are going to do with a $5 million dollar budget, no one answered that, but they just added what they are going to pile onto the budget.

      When Andrew Yang said that he would get the vast number of mentally ill New Yorkers off the streets by “rebuilding the stock of psych beds that have gone down 14%,” New York City’s Comptroller Scott Stringer asked, “How much is it going to cost?”

      “You can’t afford not to do it Scott,” Yang responded. "It is not right for them to be on the streets.”

     Stringer, however, who as the city’s chief financial officer, financially checks on and audits the mayor, interjected, “This is a ‘teaching moment.’

      “How much are the psych beds going to cost, if I could ask you that? That is the real question. Do you have any idea on the amount?

     “You can’t just say, 'Psych beds for all.' This is not how the next mayor has to comport themselves. We need specifics.”                                                                                                                             

      When the candidates were asked how they would address the issue of affordable housing in New York City, McGuire pointed out that the many promises on offer “reflect the inability of the candidates to understand how the budget works and how numbers work.” 

     “Given the history I have,” said Mr. McGuire, a longtime investment banker, “this won’t be my first time managing a large budget," as he laid out his plan to create housing that does not cost New Yorkers more than 30% of their income. 

      McGuire later said that the candidates who “kept cutting in $100 million here, $100 million there to the budget” were “talking loud, saying nothing.”

      “What they are talking about doesn’t work because it creates a budget deficit. The only way out of this is to grow.”