These centrists want him to hand that cash over to billionaires instead, obviously, like Biden, Obama, and Clinton did. The notion of one's taxes being used for the citizens own benefit is scary to them.

I kid.

What they want is for Mamdani to be as shitty as they and the people they vote for are so they can feel better in telling us that better things aren't possible.

Hasn't NYC subsidized the rest of the state while getting little in return from them in the past?

I mean, yes, because NYC is where the money is. Manhattan is full of millionaires, and most of Upstate is either farmland or abandoned company towns that have spent the last three decades trying to rebuild after Kodak/Xerox/GE packed up and moved out.

Can't get blood from a stone.

This works on an intra-state level and interstate level. Usually the poorer, rural areas of a state require financial assistance to support their people that comes from the higher taxes and earnings cities make. From there states that don't have strong metropolitan centers with a lot of business and money flow require cash flows from those that do in order to support themselves. No one in those poorer states will admit to it because it also kills the self sufficient by nature image they have of themselves.

No no no. You see, urban centers generating all the wealth and then giving that wealth to the apple pie loving rugged individualists in suburban-pretending-to-be-rural areas is the natural order. Any change to this system is unAmerican, evil, greedy city fatcats out fatcatting it up like a bunch of commies. /s

Why are we saying that Mamdani getting funds from the state is a bad thing?

The wing of the party that expects us to buy that the biden administration kept its promises by announcing its intent to keep their promises won't accept that balancing a budget is balancing a budget.