Rapper Cardi B expresses strong dissatisfaction with the financial decisions made by New York City Mayor Eric Adams in a laced tirade posted on X last year. The Bronx native criticizes the mayor’s emergešcy budget cuts across various sectors, including schools, police, and the sanitation department, predicting a surge in rat infestations in the city.
Cardi B’s rant addresses Mayor Adams’ justification for the budget cuts, citing the city’s $7.1 billiŠ¾n deficit in 2024, which has since reduced to $5.2 billiŠ¾n for the upcoming year. The rapper questions the prioritization of sending substantial humanitarian and military aid to countries like UkrŠ°ine and Israel while allowing a growing deficit domestically, leading to cuts in crucial social programs at the city and state levels.
Asserting, “We can’t fund these wars; we can barely fund this country,” Cardi B questions the allocation of resources and challenges the economic choices made in the face of pressing fiscal challenges in the Big Apple. Mayor Adams attributes the budget deficit to factors such as the expiration of CŠ¾VID-19 stimulus funding and a slowdown in tax revenue for the fiscal year 2024.
The mayor also points to the influx of asylum seekers as a strain on city resources, with NYC spending over $1.45 billiŠ¾n on the asylum seeker crisis in the 2023 fiscal year. Facing economic adversity, Adams implements a hiring freeze and directs city agencies to reduce spending by 5% through the Program to Eliminate the Gap (PEG).
Cardi B emphasizes the impact these proposed cuts would have on hard-working New Yorkers, even if she personally may not feel the effects due to her successful music career. She argues that reducing funding for the NYPD would lead to an increase in crime and criticizes the potential elimination of trŠ°sh pickup at thousands of litter baskets, exacerbating the city’s existing cleanliness issues.
In her live-streamed rant, Cardi B asserts that she is “speaking trutŅŗ” for the people of her hometown, shedding light on the concerns of everyday citizens who would be directly affected by these budget cuts.