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Zohran Mamdani, who’s running to be mayor of the city with the most billionaires in the world, said they should not exist.
The 33-year-old left-winger, who defeated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to be the Democrats’ New York City mayoral candidate, told NBC News Sunday, “I don’t think that we should have billionaires because, frankly, it is so much money in a moment of such inequality.”
He added, “What we need more of is equality across our city, and across our state, and across our country, and I look forward to work with everyone, including billionaires, to make a city that is fairer for all of them.”
Cuomo’s campaign for the Democratic nomination was backed by billionaires, including hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg.
According to Altrata’s 2024 Billionaire Census, New York has the most billionaires of any city. It has 123 billionaires with a combined net worth of $759 billion, Forbes reported in April.
NBC asked Mamdani to respond to President Donald Trump calling him a “communist lunatic.” Mamdani said, “I’m fighting for the very working people that he ran a campaign to empower that he has since then betrayed.”
Mamdani said that he called himself a “democratic socialist.”
Mamdani referred to Martin Luther King Jr’s words from 1961, when he said, “Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.”
“As income inequality has declined nationwide, it has increased in New York City, and ultimately, what we need is a city where every single person can thrive,” Mamdani added.
Some billionaires think they should be taxed more.
George Soros and Abigail Disney were among the 18 billionaires who signed an open letter in 2019 to presidential candidates supporting a “moderate wealth tax” on the richest 1%.
“Those of us in the richest 1/10 of the richest 1% should be proud to pay a bit more of our fortune forward to America’s future,” the letter said.
Other prominent left-wingers have said billionaires should not exist. Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who endorsed Mamdani in the primary, has said a system that lets billionaires exist while many Americans continue to live in poverty is “wrong.”
She said in 2019, “Are we comfortable with a society where someone can have a personal helipad while this city is experiencing the highest levels of poverty and homelessness since the Great Depression?”
The same year, then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders proposed a wealth tax on accumulated wealth, which he said would halve the average billionaire’s wealth over 15 years.
A survey of 5,000 American adults, conducted by the Pew Research Center in January and February, found that 58% thought households with incomes over $400,000 should be taxed more. This figure jumps to 74% for Democrats and falls to 43% for Republicans.
Some experts argue that raising taxes for billionaires could backfire.
Academics Jessica Flanigan and Chris Freiman previously told Business Insider there’s a prevalent belief that if governments tax billionaires more, the money can be spent on public goods and assistance programs.
The academics said tax revenue doesn’t tend to be used that way, adding, “Increasing taxes may slow economic growth, which harms those in poverty over the long term.”
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