Well, this will work out well for the residents of New York City.

Eric Adams, the Mayor of New York City, is having trouble paying for the feeding, housing, and coddling of the illegal migrants who have flooded his city thanks to Joe Biden’s open borders.

Adams was elected to clean up the city and to address the crime epidemic after the disastrous reign of Bill DeBlasio. His election was a bit of rebellion against the soft-on-crime policies that were undermining the advances made during the pre-DeBlasio mayoralties of Giuliani and Bloomberg to make the city livable for the middle class.

So imagine the disappointment the residents of the city are experiencing now that Adams has decided to slash the police budget as a money-saving strategy–a strategy made necessary by the influx of migrants.

The Democrat mayor of New York has slashed the city’s policing budget, blaming the influx of more than 100,000 migrants in the last year.

Eric Adams said he would oversee $4 billion in budget cuts over the next 18 months, including cancelling the hiring of new police officers, reducing education spending and closing public libraries on Sundays.

He blamed the rising costs of the city’s migrant crisis for the move, with tens of thousands of people having travelled from the US’s southern border to New York, seeking the shelter and financial aid which the city is obliged by law to provide.

“This is the most painful exercise I’ve ever done in my professional life,” Mr Adams said, telling New Yorkers they would experience “disruptions to the services you all rely on”.

The cuts will mean the New York Police Department will cancel its next five intakes of new officers, reducing the overall headcount to less than 30,000 for the first time in decades.

This was not what New Yorkers expected when they elected Adams, although frankly, it is what they should have expected when they decided to virtue signal by making New York a “sanctuary city.”

Virtue signaling is all well and good when you don’t have to put your money where your mouth is, and in this case, the money involved is at least $4 billion.

Looking down your nose at Trump and Red state governors was, no doubt, extremely satisfying, but as with so many other self-flattering moves, it’s not so fun when the bill arrives and you have to deal with the consequences.

The consequences are already substantial–among other things, crime has gone up and quality of life has gone down, and the budget cuts will guarantee that this trend will continue.

Unlike many of my friends, I enjoy no schadenfreude regarding this. New York City isn’t just an iconic symbol of America, even more than our nation’s capital Washington D.C.; it is an important cog in the economic engine of America and the home of millions of people who don’t deserve to pay the price for Biden’s outrageous border policies.

Chicago Mayor Race: 35% registered voter turnout pic.twitter.com/U0f4di9sqb

— Adam B. Coleman, President of Aintblackistan (@wrong_speak) November 19, 2023

Were the price paid for these policies only paid by the radical Leftists who shoved them on the rest of us I would be indifferent to their suffering–people learn best when they burn their hand on the stove–but they aren’t. Lots of other people will suffer as well, just as conservatives are paying the price for the election of Joe Biden in addition to the 81 million who voted for him.

Fewer than 10% of New York’s residents actually voted for Adams. 8.8 million people live there, and only 753,000 people voted for him.

Houston Mayoral Race: 18% registered voter turnout pic.twitter.com/2Hi0Qz1uah

— Adam B. Coleman, President of Aintblackistan (@wrong_speak) November 19, 2023

Don’t expect a political awakening in New York City any time soon. Biden will win the vote there handily, despite having done more than even Bill DeBlasio to harm the residents there. Adams, while a Democrat himself and way too liberal for my taste, is more a victim of Biden and DeBlasio than a cause of this crisis.

The sense of inevitability likely discourages many dissenters from voting in the first place. “What’s the point?,” they think. So a small. Even the most politically attuned get discouraged because the nutters almost always win.

Much of the blame goes to the Democrat political machine. The city itself employs about 330,000 people, and there are many more government employees at the state and federal levels and various agencies. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that half of the Democrats’ votes in the last election came from that cohort, although obviously, we have no accounting. With an initial pool of votes that large it is difficult for non-Democrats/non-liberals to win. Leftists have a huge advantage because of this.

The election of Bloomberg and Giuliani before him shows that despite the built-in advantage of Democrats, they are not guaranteed victory. And the election of Adams shows that New Yorkers want a safer city–Adams, after all, is a former cop.

But wanting something is not enough if you aren’t willing to make hard choices. As New Yorkers are learning, you can’t be a “sanctuary city” and a safe city at the same time.