Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll get details on something that Mayor Zohran Mamdani and business executives actually agree on. We’ll also find out about a lawsuit against Columbia University that was filed by former student activists including Mahmoud Khalil, who became a nemesis for the Trump administration as it moved against demonstrations on campuses last year.
A new group of business leaders, the NYC Child Care Business Council, wants to help make the case that New York City needs affordable child care. It’s one of the few things that executives and Mayor Zohran Mamdani agree on. But paying for expanded child care with new taxes? That might be an issue. The mayor, a democratic socialist, is unafraid to talk about taxing the rich. I asked Eliza Shapiro, who covers the affordability crisis in New York, to discuss whether business leaders and the mayor can come to terms. The NYC Child Care Business Council wants to convince other influential executives that New York needs expanded child care. Why does it seem like a hard sell? For some business leaders and groups, it’s actually not much of a hard sell — there has been growing concern among companies based here that the lack of affordable child care will make it harder for them to attract and retain talent. But part of the job is going to be to get more business leaders involved, especially those who consider Mayor Mamdani to be overly skeptical of Wall Street and other major industries here. Obviously, nobody wants to pay higher taxes. The mayor has proposed a 2 percent income tax surcharge on people making more than $1 million a year as a way to fund child care. Is that a nonstarter? There is real public support for a tax increase. It’s one of the issues that helped propel Mamdani to victory, and public polling continues to show significant interest in a tax hike on wealthy New Yorkers. The governor, Kathy Hochul, has not been keen to raise taxes, especially since she’s facing a re-election fight this fall, but it’s possible that her position might change if she wins in November and feels more politically comfortable. But yes, business leaders are generally opposed to raising taxes to boost the city’s revenue. More broadly, how complicated would it be to pay for universal child care? You quoted a recent report that said a truly universal system would cost $9 billion a year. Yes, a few weeks ago I wrote about a report from the New School that found that a realistic ballpark figure for fully realized, universal free child care in the city would cost about $9 billion annually, significantly more than the mayor’s initial estimate of about $6 billion annually. It’s very hard to see how that gets paid for without a major influx of cash from Albany, a significant rearranging of the city budget or new revenue in the form of taxes. It’s about $5 billion more than the city currently spends on child care, so there is a major open question about how the city is actually going to pay for this. What about private fund-raising and the city’s “child care action fund”? Private fund-raising and the city’s own child care fund are explicitly intended to be complements to public funding, not replacements. That’s true for everything from the $100 million gift for early childhood education from Jeff Bezos’ family to the roughly $6 million the Mayor’s Fund has raised for child care in the last few months. So it’s clear that the city is going to have to find a reliable long-term public funding solution, rather than relying on philanthropy. Is child care the one and only issue that the groups within the group can come to terms with Mamdani on, or will child care serve as a bridge to finding common ground on other problems the city is facing? I think this is a really interesting open question, and so much of it remains to be seen. It is entirely possible that this new business council will help open up more communication and common ground between City Hall and business leaders. Both parties agree that there is a strong economic case to be made for more affordable child care across the city. But I do think the fact that each side of the aisle has such a different view about how to pay for it might complicate the idea that this is the beginning of a beautiful new friendship. WEATHER Today will be sunny with a high around 79. Tonight, expect partly cloudy skies and a low of 67. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Monday (Yom Kippur). QUOTE OF THE DAY “I don’t think the lore of it being President Trump’s former childhood home helped necessarily.” — Gerald Magny, the real estate agent representing the anonymous buyer who paid $1.93 million for the Tudor-style house in Jamaica Estates, Queens. Recently renovated, it is where the president lived until he was 4 years old. The latest New York news
We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. Khalil says Columbia failed to protect pro-Palestinian students
“I’m not suing Columbia for what ICE did,” Mahmoud Khalil said yesterday. “I’m suing Columbia for creating the conditions for ICE to do what it did.” Khalil, who became the face of Columbia’s pro-Palestinian movement last year when ICE officers arrested him at his Columbia University apartment building, is among the former student activists who filed suit against the school yesterday. They accuse Columbia of failing to address harassment they said they had faced, with Khalil saying that in the months before his arrest, he had asked Columbia administrators to help protect him against threats he had received. My colleague Sharon Otterman writes that the lawsuit accuses Columbia of a pattern of “deliberate indifference” against Khalil and other pro-Palestinian students that predated the Hamas-led terror attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. Columbia declined to comment on the lawsuit, but a spokeswoman said that “creating a campus environment where every member of our community feels welcome, supported and safe is fundamental to who we are as a university.” Khalil, who was a legal permanent resident and not accused of a crime when ICE officers took him into custody, became a nemesis for the Trump administration as it moved to crack down on pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses. He spent 104 days in detention, missing the birth of his first child, and still faces deportation. His detention raised First Amendment concerns that even a legal permanent resident could be arrested for political speech. Khalil has filed a separate suit accusing Trump administration officials, pro-Israel groups and a conservative think tank of colluding to suppress his constitutional rights. METROPOLITAN DIARY Midtown Viking
Dear Diary: I was wandering around Midtown Manhattan with a friend on a heavy February afternoon in the early 1970s. We were in our late teens and had made an ill-advised move to New York from Southern California. We were broke but smitten with the city. Whenever we weren’t looking for jobs, we were out exploring the streets. Turning a corner somewhere in the 50s, we encountered a towering figure who appeared as if from out of this mist — a Viking by all outward appearances, silent and unmoving. As we approached him, it became clear that this looming apparition was actually a man wearing a costume of layered and quilted leather and fabric swatches. A pointed helmet sat low over his eyes. At his side, he carried a long staff. Someone was talking at him — jabbering, as I recall — but this giant gave no indication that he was listening. “Are you a prophet?” my friend Tim asked. The man turned toward us slowly and tilted his head down. “No,” he said. “I am a total loss.” It wasn’t until many years later that I realized we had had an audience with Moondog, the blind musician and composer. Soon after that, the city spanked us and sent us home. New York is not a place to indulge the unworthy. But neither is it stingy with its charms. — Grant Loud Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
