Democratic New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani flipped a famous Ronald Reagan quote on its head to justify government-controlled grocery stores in a Monday speech.
The former anti-communist Republican president was wrong to say in 1986 that “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help,’” Mamdani told supporters while announcing an upcoming city-run grocery store in the Bronx. “The power of government” will help deliver New Yorkers from the city’s economic woes, the self-proclaimed democratic socialist mayor said.
“It’s a good quote, but I disagree,” Mamdani said of Reagan. “I think nine more terrifying words are actually, ‘I worked all day and can’t feed my family.’”
“We are going to use the power of government to lower prices and make it easier for New Yorkers to put food on the table,” Mamdani continued. “When government understands its purpose as serving the very working people that it has left behind time and again, it can make a difference in the most pressing struggles facing our city today. It’s not just that government can help, it’s that government must help, and our government will help.”
Mamdani plans to spend $70 million to create five total stores across the city starting in East Harlem, his office said Monday. The Harlem facility alone is set to cost taxpayers well above market value to build and could eat up more than $300,000 a year in perpetuity, The New York Post reported.
New York City’s affordability crisis continues to worsen, with half of working-age New York City residents unable to cover housing, health care, food and other basic needs with their incomes, according to the nonprofit United Way New York City. The city’s cost of living has steadily increased faster than median earnings for more than two decades, United Way found.
Mamdani maintains that the benefits of city-run stores will outweigh the costs.
“This store and the [Bronx] peninsula as a whole will serve as physical proof of our conviction that government can be a force for good, that government can drive change that improves people’s lives,” Mamdani told his audience Monday.
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