NYC’s Mamdani Mimics Trump and Musk DOGE With COGE Plan (1)

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he’s forming a new Commission of Government Efficiency, or COGE, to improve the way City Hall spends public funds.

“This commission will find ways for our city to work smarter, faster and more efficiently for working people,” Mamdani wrote in a post on X on Thursday. “New Yorkers deserve a city government as careful with their money as they are.”

The branding invites inevitable comparisons with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, the controversial and now defunct Trump administration project that was designed to slash spending and shrink the bureaucracy. Musk claimed he would cut $2 trillion in spending, but left after clashing with cabinet secretaries and seeing some of his efforts blocked by courts.

Read more: Remembering the Rise and Fall of Musk’s DOGE

Mamdani said his effort will be led by Patrick Gaspard, a former US ambassador to South Africa, while the mayor proposed selecting Ann Cheng as executive director. Mamdani said in a statement that COGE is expected to “remove outdated bureaucratic barriers that slow infrastructure projects and delay services.”

The body plans to hold 10 public hearings across the city and then proposals will be presented to voters in November.

Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has primarily sought to raise taxes to cover a gaping budget deficit and fund a progressive agenda, including free buses, free childcare and an ambitious program to construct affordable housing. But he’s said in the past that he would look to cut some funding to bloated city agencies, including the Department of Education, and campaigned on reforming the procurement process to save the city money.

The mayor unveiled a $124.7 billion budget this month that included $4 billion in aid from New York state. On Wednesday, Albany approved a new pied-a-terre tax that is designed to raise $500 million to help the city.

Read more: Mamdani Scraps Property Tax Hike, Counts Second-Home Revenue

(Updates with COGE details in fourth paragraph.)

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