Socialist Zohran Mamdani admits he might need plan B as it’s still unclear how he would fund $10B agenda

Socialist mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani admitted Monday he might need another plan to fund his $10 billion freebie-filled agenda if he can’t score tax hikes on the ultra-wealthy and corporations.

Mamdani, during a campaign event on affordability in Queens, repeated that soaking the rich is the “most straightforward and productive way” to pay for free buses, city-owned grocery stores and his other feel-good proposals as questions remain about where the cash would actually come from.

But the proud democratic socialist added that paying for the programs is more important than how the money is raised.

“If this money is funded by the additional taxes or it’s funded by a better than expected (tax) assessment, or it’s funded by a pot of money that wasn’t previously spoken about, or savings that have come in, then the most important thing is that it’s funded,” he said.

Mamdani’s signal that he won’t throw his policy babies out with the socialist bathwater echoes what he has been privately telling New York City’s business leaders for months.

During two meetings with bigwigs arranged by the Partnership for New York City, including one last week over Zoom, Mamdani stuck to his guns that he wanted to raise taxes on them and their corporations, according to the pro-business group’s president Kathy Wylde.

But she said Mamdani also provided “nuance,” effectively conceding he would need a plan B in the likely event Albany lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul — who would need to OK the tax hikes — knock down his pitch.

Hochul has said she is not in favor of upping taxes.

“He stated he was clear on his goals, but open on how to achieve them,” Wylde said.

“(Which) enabled people to think that if there were other ways to raise money or relocate resources, that he would be open to that.”

The prospect of an unabashed socialist in Gracie Mansion has left many Big Apple business leaders shaking in their boots, even before Mamdani’s lopsided victory in June’s Democratic mayoral primary.

Mamdani made no secret from his campaign’s early days that he hoped to drum up $10 billion for his freebie-filled agenda in part by taxing the well-to-do.

He pitched a 2% tax hike on New York City’s millionaires and a 4.5% increase on corporations.

The single-digit hikes were greeted with sky-is-falling prognostications and dire warnings, such as billionaire supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis threatening to close his grocery chain Gristedes if Mamdani is elected.

Mamdani, since becoming the Democratic nominee and runaway favorite to become the next mayor, has tried to make peace with business bigs — to a point.

He amicably schmoozed with roughly 100 CEOS in July during his first meeting arranged by the Partnership for New York City, but his attempts at dialogue haven’t completely assuaged their fears.

Jeff Gural, chairman of GFP Real Estate, said he met with the “charming” Mamdani last week and found common ground over gripes about the city’s wildly uneven property tax system.

But Gural, who co-founded Patriotic Millionaires, a group that advocates for higher taxes at the federal level, said he warned Mamdani that hiking rates in New York City will spark an exodus.

“Higher taxes on the wealthy at the federal level is a good idea,” he said. “But people can move if you raise taxes at the city and state level.”

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who lost to the state Assembly member in the primary but is mounting an independent run for mayor, said there was “zero” chance that his rival’s plan to raise corporate taxes would pass in Albany.

“That’s because he’s only been in the Assembly for 20 minutes,” Cuomo sneered. “No legislator could vote for that bill.”

Bill Cunningham, a former City Hall and gubernatorial aide, said the idealistic Mamdani is running into the reality that the only ways to fund his dreamy vision for New York City is either raising revenue or cutting expenses.

“You know Mario Cuomo used to say that you campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose,” Cunningham said. “The poetry of free buses and stores and shifting money around to certain priorities — that’s the poetry of the campaign.

“But the brick-and-mortar, the prose, is what you have to do as mayor. And there’s only certain ways the government gets money. It comes from people and it comes from redistributing what you already have.”