This summer, I’ve heard upstaters and Long Islanders ask: “Why should I care who the mayor of New York City is? I don’t even live there.” The answer is simple: one-third of our state budget goes to New York City every year.  New York State’s total budget this year is $254 billion. Out of that, an enormous share is going straight into New York City. More than half of all statewide Medicaid spending, about 52 percent, goes to NYC, which amounts to roughly $19.5 billion. The city also takes in about 36 percent of all school aid, nearly $14.9 billion. On top of that, New York City receives about 52 percent of local aid revenue, another $13.9 billion. Combined, that means more than $32 billion in school and local aid alone is being poured into NYC. When you add other programs like homeless services, childcare, and transit, the total grows even larger. In other words, close to one-third of the state’s operating budget is flowing into one city that continues to struggle and fail.  New York City has already had two failing mayors over the last 11 years, and taxpayers across the state have been forced to pay for the consequences.

The results speak for themselves. Despite the billions of dollars, New York City has become more dangerous, more expensive to get to, making it less of a destination, more expensive to live in, and new regulations and taxes have driven business to other states. Homelessness is at crisis levels. The city has committed billions to asylum-seeker shelters. Families and industry are leaving in large numbers. None of this has made life better for the rest of New York, it is no longer the economic engine that helped our state. Now all taxpayers are paying the bill.

New York City is moving toward leadership that embraces extreme views. Weakening the police even more while pouring endless resources into programs that are already strained guarantees more insecurity and higher costs. The free bus program is a proposal with a $650 million annual price tag and no clarity on who will be responsible for paying for it, and it is just the start. The same mindset that calls for government-run transit also extends to government-owned grocery stores, a vision that embraces a socialist mindset.

This matters everywhere. Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange, and NASDAQ are located in New York City. If the city continues to grow even more unsafe or unmanageable, these institutions, and the jobs and tax revenue they generate, will move elsewhere. Financial industry giants are already expanding outside the state, and this election could accelerate this trend moving the industries toward Texas and the Midwest.  New York will lose its status as the nation’s financial capital, and that would devastate state revenues. The same is true for tourism. More than 66 million people visited New York City in 2023, generating $74 billion in economic activity. If tourists stop coming because the city is unsafe, that revenue will disappear, taking jobs and tax dollars with it.

So why is the New York City mayoral election so important to the entire state of New York?  Putting someone with even more extreme views in office will truly make things worse. We need stronger laws for more safety, less regulation and taxes for our businesses, no more sanctuary city status, more financial oversight for public transportation, ensuring that projects that receive state dollars are completed and run more efficiently, and no more congestion pricing. We need a mayor who will stand up to bad New York State-proposed laws and fight back.

So yes, you should care who runs New York City. Because when the city fails, it will weigh heavily on our state, pulling our state further down the drain.