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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer, on WNYC. We talked in our last segment about President Biden as he runs for re-election under pressure from all sides on the federal debt ceiling talks. The other day-- Did you hear this yet? The Biden team fired Mayor Eric Adams from being a Biden surrogate. The reason? Adams keeps asking the Biden administration for more help for the 70,000+ asylum seekers who've arrived in the city since around last year, around February of last year.

Here's an example of what the Biden team didn't like the Mayor saying. This is Adams, yesterday, on MSNBC. You'll hear him refer to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA.

Mayor Eric Adams: We spent over a billion dollars, and we're looking to spend over $4 billion in the upcoming year. This is not sustainable for us, and we believe this is not right for the people of this city. FEMA allocated, out of the $350,000,000-- Only $30 million went to New York City. We receive a large sum of migrants in our city, but we're not getting the funding to match, the plan on our border estates is-- Simply use the money from FEMA to bus migrants to New York City. That is just not a workable solution.

Brian Lehrer: A lot of big numbers there. A Joe Biden Eric Adams moment of alienation. Of course, this is a New York City local politics conflict too. Did you hear that one of the latest moves is the Suffolk County legislature-- Of course, that's the Eastern county on Long Island, planning to pass a measure to ban asylum seekers as much as possible. As News 12 Long Island reports it, Presiding Officer Kevin McCaffrey, a Republican, said the legislature would introduce a motion to, "authorize the hiring of a special counsel to pursue all legal options available to protect the unfunded location of any asylum seekers in Suffolk County."

I wonder if McCaffrey's forebears, judging from his name, were here for the No Irish Need-Apply era. Progressives in the city think Adams isn't doing enough. We'll get a take on the finances mostly, of the city helping asylum seekers and other matters now, from New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who, of course, watches the city's books for a living, as the Comptroller. Hi, Comptroller. Welcome back to WNYC.

Brad Lander: Good morning, Brian. Great to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: First, are you with the mayor on his number of a $4 billion cost to the city for the asylum seekers in the upcoming yea,r on top of an approximately $100 billion annual budget? That's a big added percentage.

Brad Lander: It's a big added percentage. That number that he was giving, I believe, he meant over two years, this year and next. We think next year-- The city projects that the cost of providing shelter to households seeking asylum for next year, fiscal year 24, will be $2.9 billion, just shy of $3 billion. We think that is a reasonable projection.

Brian Lehrer: Are you with the mayor on his demand that the federal government step up more on what is really a federal government issue? How many asylum seekers are crossing the border and winding up concentrated in New York?

Brad Lander: Absolutely. We need federal reimbursement for a big chunk of that funding. Let's remember, the right to safely seek asylum is a national obligation under international law, and the city's right-to-shelter policy, which I think we should be proud of, that says we don't let people sleep on the streets. That's unique and found in the New York State Constitution. While the state is putting in $500 million a year, I actually think we need more dollars from the state as well.

Brian Lehrer: What do you make of the Suffolk County legislature getting ready to hire lawyers to keep migrants out? How much of this is, in your opinion, bald-faced racism, and how much is it their own legitimate need to protect the country's finances and infrastructure from getting overwhelmed?

Brad Lander: Mostly bald-faced racism. That right to shelter is found in the New York State Constitution. It's not a New York City law or decision. It was found in the New York State Constitution. Look, immigrants, Irish, Italian, Jewish, like me, Dominican, Chinese, that's what makes New York New York. It's what renews our economy. Yes, of course, we have to get federal and state reimbursement to cover the cost of shelter, but welcoming immigrants is the New York way. Rejecting them, in the way Suffolk and some other folks are doing, is amplifying xenophobia.

Brian Lehrer: The Suffolk measure does specify unfunded location in the county of any asylum seekers, but we've seen in Rockland and Orange counties, they're objecting intensely even when the city is funding the hotel rooms. Is Suffolk taking a softer tack, in a way?

Brad Lander: [laughs] I haven't had a chance to look between Suffolk and Orange and Rockland. Look, it's a shame that we can't have a united front here. We all should be pushing for federal reimbursement, for additional state funding and support. We should all interpret the New York State right to shelter in comparable ways. Look, one thing I think we all should be doing more, including New York City, including the Adams administration, is providing the resources and legal supports to help people complete their asylum applications.

Six months later, you can get your work authorization, and then folks can get on their feet and move out of shelter, which is really what folks want. Liz Kim had a great story last week--

Brian Lehrer: Our reporter Liz Kim, just to say.

Brad Lander: Exactly, which profiled a few people, and how hard they're trying to find jobs, get to work, contribute to the city, and get the income that they need to move out of shelter. If we team up together to help that happen-- One, we'll save money, because we won't have to spend so much to have people in the shelter system. Two, that's how our economy gets renewed and regenerated.

Brian Lehrer: Another stat out there now, from the mayor-- Actually, before I even go on to that stat, I guess that's another point of friction between the mayor and the Biden administration, is what you just talked about. The city wants the work authorization for the migrants who are in the asylum process to kick in before the customary six months, I think it is. If they're here, if they're in the system, it's not like they're lurking in the shadows.

They've given their names. They want to be granted political asylum. Okay, you're official. You're being evaluated. Let those people work now. Do you have any sense of why the Biden administration isn't acting to do that? My understanding, I believe, is that they don't need Congress to do it, and then people would be able to work. There'd be less of a burden on the city's tax rolls to support them. They would also start paying taxes, as people earning incomes.

Brad Lander: There's a dispute about whether the White House can do it on its own, or whether it takes congressional approval, and I'm not an expert on that. Congress did grant humanitarian parole for Ukrainian refugees, and for some Afghan refugees as well. It was a remarkable story yesterday, about Afghans who weren't able to get in the country that way and are now part of the folks walking up and crossing the southern border.

I agree we should do that here, give people work authorization as soon as they file their application for asylum. I don't want to let the city totally off the hook, because we're not helping people take advantage of even that six-month window. Obviously, this started about a year ago, and if we had started six or nine months ago, saying to folks, "Hey, we can help you file your asylum application, and then, six months later, get your work authorization," thousands of people would already have it, even given existing federal policy.

Yes, let's keep pushing Washington to speed it up, but we, New York City-- It would just be more efficient, as a use of our resources, to be providing it. There's a little bit of that happening. I was actually at the navigation center where the shelter, WIN, and New York legal assistance group were doing a clinic that had helped 20 people that day file those applications, which will get them in position to get their work authorizations, but we're spending almost no resources on it.

More than 99% of the $2 billion we've spent so far has just gone for shelter. Way less than 1% on services to help people get on their feet. I'm working with the immigration chair in the council, Shahana Hanif, on a proposal to allocate $70 million for those services. We've got to ramp that up now, in addition to making demands of Washington.

Brian Lehrer: My guest for another few minutes is New York City Comptroller, Brad Lander. I see you're ready to make some news this morning. You're going to make it here, with a proposal to raise taxes on the top 1% in income. Want to lay it out?

Brad Lander: Sure. We've got very real fiscal challenges in the coming years, but at the moment, New York City is doing better than you think. Year to date, tax revenues through April are up nearly 6% over last year. We're back at 99.7% of pre-pandemic jobs. We need a long-term savings program, but we don't need to cut for services like supportive housing, public libraries, 3Ks, senior meals, all cut in this year's budget.

In the long term, we've got to do more to strengthen the city's economic position and confront core affordability challenges in housing, and childcare, mental health care. I was looking back, the mayor and governor had appointed this commission that was co-chaired by Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, no wide-eyed liberal. They said we need new investments in affordable housing, childcare, climate resilience, in mental health care for the city to thrive. That resource, that money, is going to have to come from somewhere.

The wealthiest New Yorkers saw their incomes and fortunes soar during the pandemic. We are laying out some proposals for how some of the wealthiest households could help provide the resources the city needs to thrive. This is the stat that struck me most, the city's personal income tax tops out the top rate at $50,000. Someone making $50 million a year is paying the same personal income tax rate in New York City income tax as someone making just over $50,000.

If we just boost the surcharge a little bit, less than 1%, on households making over $500,000, so nobody making an income of less than $500,000 would feel this. Households paying over $500,000 would see their tax rate for New York City personal income tax go up by less than 1%, then we propose a few tiers above that, and that could bring in almost a billion dollars a year, that the city could then be using on supportive housing, on mental healthcare, on getting to Universal 3-K, and confronting some of the core affordability challenges that working and middle-class families are really facing in the city.

Brian Lehrer: Didn't the city have an above 4% tax rate back in the early 2000 aughts?

Brad Lander: That's right, from 2003 to 2005, after 9/11, and also back in the 1990s. We would just be restoring it to a level we've used before in moments of need, and this is a moment of need like that.

Brian Lehrer: Another aspect of your proposal is luxury pied-à-terre tax. Usually, when we say pied-à-terre, it's people with second apartments in the city, who primarily live somewhere else.

Brad Lander: That's right. These are folks who-- It's not their primary residence. They own a unit in New York City, and we set it for those that are worth over $3 million. This is someone who's living somewhere else, may have who knows how many homes, but at least two, they're not primarily living here. The one they have here is worth over $3 million. This would be a luxury pied-à-terre tax surcharge. It's been proposed in the state legislature by State Senator Brad Hoylman.

It would bring in several hundred million dollars more, again, with the goal of making investments in affordability for people who do live here.

Brian Lehrer: We got to go in a minute, but these proposals for raising revenue to support, and I think I get it, not just the immediate needs of the asylum seekers with these extra billions of dollars of city expenses that weren't expected even a year ago, but also all the other important city services, you listed some of them, education, others that are now facing cuts in order to afford the city's other current expenses, including the migrants.

Interesting proposals on how to raise revenue on people, or on the backs of people who really aren't going to be dinged in their lifestyle in any way. Who's this up to?

Brad Lander: New York City's tax revenue power basically all comes from Albany. We would need the state legislature to make these adjustments, and I don't think they're going to do that in the remaining few weeks of the legislative session. It hasn't been the most productive on tough issues like this, or affordable housing, but this is a long-term conversation. The budget that Mayor Adams proposed, $107 billion, is actually very near balance for next year, for fiscal 2024.

This, as you say, is really a longer-term question about the investments we need, so we want to open that conversation up now. We are going to need to have it in the years to come.

Brian Lehrer: New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, it's always an interesting conversation when you come on. Thanks for going through so many numbers and giving us clarity on some of the details of what's going on now from your perspective. Thank you very much.

Brad Lander: Great to be with you. Never been on during the pledge drive, so I hope people will contribute.

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