In his inauguration address last year, Mayor Zohran Mamdani vowed “to transform and reinvent” New York City. That pledge took an ominous leap forward last month when the mayor appointed former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan as the head of New York City’s Economic Development Corporation board of directors.
The move was more than just the latest punch in the gut for New York City’s beleaguered business community, already the most heavily regulated and taxed in the nation. Even before Khan’s appointment, New York’s millionaires were leaving the city in droves, taking $11 billion in tax revenue with them to more business-friendly environments such as Florida, Texas, and Tennessee.
If her past service in the Biden administration is prologue, Khan’s outsize role in dictating New York’s economic policy will make a bad situation worse. After all, she’s already made her priorities for the city’s economic development arm clear. Let’s check the tape.
Earlier this year, Mamdani tasked Khan with finding a president for the EDC. The New York Times reported that Khan’s “questions did not focus heavily on issues long central to the agency’s mission,” and “several economic development experts expressed concern about the apparent lack of emphasis … on job creation and expanding the city’s tax base.” That makes sense coming from someone who views entrepreneurs with such disdain that she referred to them as “mob bosses.”
Making matters worse, Khan’s ambiguous authority as board chair raises a key question of who Mamdani is truly leaning on when it comes to economic development. While Anthony Shorris serves as president and CEO, Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su introduced Khan at a recent press conference as “someone watching over” the EDC — a stark departure from the traditional board chair role.
At her core, Khan’s background is that of an activist regulator. She is a progressive ideologue with little experience working outside of academia or government. In the socialist Mamdani administration, these are evidently seen as necessary qualifications, not dangerous red flags or warning signs.
Look at what Khan has already done in New York. Even before Mamdani took office, as a cochair of his transition team, Khan was tasked with identifying archaic regulations that Mamdani could use to wield his executive power to supersede the slightly more moderate City Council. This was also a hallmark of Khan’s tenure at the FTC, which was marked by power grabs and policies that put people out of jobs. Under her watch, hundreds of employees at Massachusetts-based iRobot were laid off after Khan worked in concert with European regulators to halt a pro-consumer merger with Amazon. If you thought her agenda wouldn’t impact the way private sector companies regularly conduct business, think again.
Khan’s new job is to help attract investment from the very companies toward which she demonstrated outright hostility during her time at the FTC. She is the one meant to encourage businesses of all sizes to lay down roots in New York, fill the city’s office buildings, and expand the tax base by making New York City a welcoming place. When companies look to grow in New York and see Khan and her far-left acolytes sitting across the table, it would be hard to blame them for looking elsewhere.
Mamdani’s remaking of New York City in his dystopian, socialist image is continuing full steam ahead with his appointment of Khan to lead the EDC. Not only is Khan unqualified for any role in economic development, but the damage that she has already inflicted upon the very businesses she is supposed to support is chilling. In the Mamdani administration, it’s just another day at the office.
A former four-term chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel is the chair of the Competitiveness Coalition.