Jim Geraghty of National Review Online highlights an interesting conversation from left-of-center thinkers.
You’ve probably heard of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. You may not have heard of Nicholas Bagley, the former chief legal counsel to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, or former Biden administration official Robert Gordon. But the three men are sounding the alarm to their fellow Democrats, warning that the blue city and blue state model are failing to deliver promised improvements, driving cities into bankruptcy, and undermining the Democrats’ arguments against President Trump and the GOP. …
… The usually mild-mannered left-of-center host tore into America’s bluest cities so thoroughly that even rival network Fox News Channel thought his comments were worth covering:
ZAKARIA: Last week, [New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani] unveiled a budget that is, in a word, unaffordable. New York has been fiscally profligate for so long that the headline number, $127 billion, produces little shock. But for perspective, these are similar to the annual expenditures of a mid-sized nation with all the expenses a country requires, like Greece or Thailand, devoted to governing one city. …
… Zakaria wasn’t just looking at New York:
“New York is really a prime example of a problem Democrats seem unwilling to confront. Blue cities are out of control. Promising more, spending more, delivering less, and pushing off the fiscal problems to some future day.
“Take Los Angeles, another one-party metropolis wrestling with affordability and disorder. The city’s homelessness budget for fiscal year 2025-26 totals about $950 million.” ….
… Then Monday, in the op-ed page of the New York Times, University of Michigan law professor Nicholas Bagley and Harvard University visiting fellow Robert Gordon warned that public-sector unions were steering Democratic governors and mayors onto a self-destructive path:
“If blue-state governors and mayors want to get serious about delivering excellent public services, they will need to do more than battle billionaire elites or embrace abundant housing and energy.
“They will have to push back against a core constituency within the Democratic Party that often makes government deliver less and cost more: unions representing teachers, police officers and transit workers.”
