NYC Comptroller Stringer Runs for Mayor Vowing to Tax the Rich

(Bloomberg) -- New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer announced his candidacy for mayor Tuesday, vowing to reduce a projected $4.2 billion budget deficit next year by pushing the state to tax the rich.

“We will ask the most fortunate to pay a bit more in taxes,” Stringer said during a campaign announcement in northern Manhattan. “We asked our frontline workers to be heroes, and we are going to ask the wealthiest among us to do their part, as well.”

The announcement capped more than a year of Stringer expressing interest in a mayoral candidacy. He’s raised more than $1.3 million in the past two years, according to the city’s Campaign Finance Board. As he prepared his candidacy over the past year, Stringer has increasingly sparred with Mayor Bill de Blasio, his former ally, pressing for more budget reserves and criticizing the mayor’s performance.

“We needed decisive leadership when he had to close the schools, and we didn’t get it,” Stringer said Tuesday. “We needed decisive leadership when it was time to open the schools, and we didn’t get it.”

Stringer, 60, a resident of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, previously served in the state Assembly from 1993 to 2005, and as Manhattan borough president for the next eight years.

He would compete in a June 2021 primary against a large and growing field of announced and potential Democratic candidates. It includes City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, former commissioner of Veteran Services Loree Sutton, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, former city Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia and former counsel to the mayor Maya Wiley.

Stringer has $2.3 million in his campaign treasury. That’s more than any other announced or potential candidate.

De Blasio is term-limited and can’t run for re-election.

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