NY Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie promises to help Zohran Mamdani raise taxes on rich as he endorses socialist NYC mayoral contender

Wealthy New Yorkers are going to be making a Heastie retreat.

State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie vowed to help Zohran Mamdani raise taxes on Big Apple millionaires as he officially endorsed the socialist mayoral frontrunner Wednesday.

The powerful Bronx Democrat — when asked whether he’d wield his influence in Albany to deliver Mamdani’s proposals of free buses and child care, as well as hiking taxes on the rich — made clear he’s all-in on the firebrand’s progressive agenda.

“All of the above,” Heastie said.

“Millionaire taxes poll extremely well.”

But Heastie was quick to point out that the Assembly is “just one leg of the tripod,” meaning any well-to-do tax increases would have need approval from the state Senate and from Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The governor also endorsed Mamdani this week, but has rejected his dream of boosting taxes on the wealthy and corporations — fearing it would only drive more penny-pinching plutocrats out of New York.

“I don’t want to lose any more people to Palm Beach,” Hochul said in June. “We’ve lost enough.”

Mamdani wants to impose a 2% income tax on Big Apple residents who make more than $1 million a year and inflate the corporate tax from 7.25% to 11.5%, the same as New Jersey.

Both hikes would help raise $10 billion for Mamdani’s sweeping freebie-filled agenda, including no-cost child care and free buses, he has argued.

But critics contend the proposed tax hikes, beyond potentially antagonizing affluent Big Apple denizens, are unrealistic given they hinge on the support of Albany lawmakers.

Heastie and his state Senate counterpart, Majority Leader Andrew Stewart-Cousins, have consistently backed raising taxes on the rich, but in a much more subdued manner than Mamdani’s controversial fashion.

The pair worked with then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo — one of Mamdani’s mayoral election rivals — in 2021 to raise New York’s income tax rate from 8.82% to 10.8% on residents making $25 million or more as the state faced a COVID pandemic-related financial crunch.

The hike was slotted to sunset in 2026, but Heastie, Hochul and Stewart-Cousins agreed to extend it in this year’s state budget.

Neither Heastie and Stewart-Cousins devoted much energy to broadcasting their support for the extension or casting it as a broader effort to tax the rich, even as they quietly included it in their one-house budget proposals.

Heastie, who pushed for several tax hikes on the rich over the years, has still faced pressure from more progressive lawmakers in his chamber — including Mamdani, an assemblyman representing Astoria, Queens — to raise them even higher.

Mamdani in 2021 signed onto a letter calling for Heastie to go further on taxing the ultra-wealthy, a push that was ultimately unsuccessful.

Alongside Mamdani on Wednesday, Heastie put the onus on Hochul.

“I’m not going to answer for her, but you know my feelings and opinions,” he said.

Mamdani said the best way to fund his campaign promises would be to raise taxes on corporations and the rich, though he signaled he wouldn’t be opposed to other avenues.

“If there are other means by which to find that revenue, the most important thing is what we fund, not how we fund,” he said.