Zohran Mamdani surely never thought that being mayor of New York City would be easy. Still, in his first month in office alone, he has had to confront daunting challenges, in addition to the usual harassment from mainstream media and the right-wing tabloids. Not long after being inaugurated, the new mayor has had to contend with a deadly winter storm, a historic nurses strike at some of the city’s biggest private sector hospitals, and a national political crisis generated by the Trump administration’s lawless immigration police.

In a press conference yesterday, Mayor Mamdani revealed another major challenge: Eric Adams’s administration had left the city with a $12 billion budget hole for the next two fiscal years. So in addition to trying to raise revenue to fund his already ambitious campaign promises, Zohran must find a way to plug the giant, already-existing gap in the city’s finances.