Are we really going to get government efficiency from a socialist? Last week, New York Mayor

Zoran Mamdani launched a new initiative, COGE, the Commission on Government Efficiency. He says

it is intended to eliminate outdated bureaucratic barriers and assure that taxpayer money is spent

wisely. That sounds good. So will this actually make

New York government leaner and more efficient? Or is this just another slick marketing gimmick?

Welcome to the Reason Roundtable. This is your libertarian review of news and culture from the

editors of Reason Magazine. I'm your host, Peter Souterman. And today I am joined by my colleagues,

Catherine Mangue Ward, Matt Welch, and Nick Gillespie.

All right, let's talk about Zoran Mamdani and Coach. When Mamdani announced the commission last week,

he said, New Yorkers deserve a city government as careful with their money as they are.

Matt, you are a New Yorker. How careful with your money are you? And is there any

reason to think that this commission will bring about a leaner, more efficient government for New York?

The fact that it's called Koje shows that it's much more in the spirit of trolling than it is

of actually taking that maxim seriously. And you don't need to start a commission to act on the seriousness

of those words. That should be what any elected official thinks at all times. You're in

charge of the public purse. Of course you're going to spend every dollar wisely. But of course,

in Zaramamam Dani's case, just like almost every single big city Democratic mayor in this country, he's not.

It was $125 billion budget.

It's not being spent carefully, and it's not going to be spent carefully.

I look forward to them trying, and I want them to succeed to do that.

And there's no reason, based on the composition of the board and the track record of Momdani and the track record of New York to expect anything good that will come out of this. Yeah, it's like if you've got to have a commission, it's like that's, we need an efficiency holiday. We need an efficiency week, right? Like this is going to be a special efficiency program because most of the time we don't do it. There's kind of an admission there.

And actually, Catherine, that's what I want to ask you about.

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