Posted originally on Feb 19, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |  

Here we go again. A city runs expansive social programs, expands spending, promises benefits, and then suddenly discovers a “budget crisis” that requires raiding reserves, tapping rainy day funds, drawing from retiree trusts, and raising property taxes to maintain so-called fiscal stability. New York City’s latest proposal openly admits it may withdraw nearly $1 billion from its rainy day fund, hundreds of millions from retiree health benefit trusts, and consider a roughly 9.5% property tax increase to close a multibillion-dollar deficit. This is not an emergency measure. This is the predictable outcome of policy trends I have repeatedly warned about, particularly in cities dominated by progressive and socialistic fiscal models.

I have written before about how politicians like Gavin Newsom and other liberal Democrats have also tapped rainy day funds during periods of economic stress while simultaneously expanding long-term obligations. The pattern is always the same: spend during the boom, blame external factors during the slowdown, and then drain reserves to avoid immediate political consequences. Rainy day funds are supposed to be buffers for recessions or crises, not routine financing tools to sustain structurally imbalanced budgets. Once governments normalize using reserves during periods of growth or mild deficits, they remove the very cushion needed when a true economic downturn arrives.

The mayor’s own budget framework acknowledges a significant fiscal gap and presents two paths: higher taxes on wealth and corporations or shifting the burden through property taxes and reserve withdrawals. You cannot continuously expand spending commitments while assuming tax revenues will keep pace indefinitely. That is not how economic cycles work. Capital is highly mobile, and as taxation rises, the tax base erodes.

Socialistic policy prioritizes redistribution and government expansion under the assumption that taxation can permanently fund rising obligations. In reality, economic confidence is the key driver of revenue. If policies discourage investment, business expansion, and high-income residency, the very tax base required to fund social programs begins to contract. Then governments are forced into the exact scenario we are seeing higher property taxes, reserve depletion, and political pressure for more state aid. Property taxes rise, services expand, costs escalate, and reserves shrink until a cyclical downturn exposes the imbalance.

Socialistic policies promoted by many progressive and socialist-leaning Democrats rest on the assumption that government can endlessly expand, redistribute, and intervene without consequence, as if economic cycles no longer apply. In the end, it is not markets that fail these systems, but the policy belief that government control can permanently override the business cycle.