Stop me if you’ve heard this before: A politician wants to cut bureaucratic red tape and reduce spending in the name of efficiency.
No, Elon Musk’s DOGE isn’t back from the dead. This time it’s NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and it’s called COGE: Commission on Government Efficiency.
Despite the obvious similarities in their names, Mamdani insists COGE’s mission is different from the now-dormant DOGE. Instead of trying to “slash and burn so many of the city services that Americans rely on,” Mamdani said his agency will make sure “the government keeps pace with New Yorkers’ needs.”
(In the spirit of efficiency, I’d avoid naming it something so close to an initiative you clearly don’t like. But I digress.)
COGE’s arrival comes amid Mamdani’s ambitious push to improve affordability in NYC, which BI has covered in its “Cost of the City” series. That’s included everything from fast and free buses to tackling “halalflation.”
The core of the issue is reducing costs while balancing NYC’s budget, and it hasn’t been easy.
Earlier this year, Mamdani ruffled feathers with a “last resort” proposal to hike city property taxes that would have largely impacted middle-income New Yorkers. He later killed the proposal when Gov. Kathy Hochul secured $8 billion for the city to help close the budget gap.
Will COGE be an agency with a similar name but a different game?
DOGE’s legacy largely depends on who you ask. Supporters argue that it forced agencies to justify spending and cut wasteful contracts. Critics say it fell well short of the promised savings and pushed experienced government employees out the door.
Either way, DOGE’s goal of reducing bureaucracy reflects a broader trend across the private sector. And COGE’s creation is an example of DOGE’s lasting impact.
Mamdani’s initiative differs in that he wants to reinvest the savings into the city to lower prices. That includes his plan to make NYC housing more affordable, with $2.5 billion allocated toward more construction.
The city is also looking elsewhere for revenue, including a new tax on multimillion-dollar second homes in New York City aiming to raise $500 million. There have also been proposals from agencies to get rid of vacant office space and cancel Slack subscriptions. That would help the city realize some savings, but it’s still a drop in the bucket.
Which raises the question: If the savings don’t materialize, will Mamdani scale back his ambitions, or will COGE start looking a lot more like DOGE?
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