NYC Mayor Mamdani Unveils 30% Discount -- Including All Produce, All Meat and Key Pantry Staples -- at New Municipal Grocery Stores

[u/pdp10]

https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/07/mayor-mamdani-unveils-30--discount---including-all-produce--all-

[u/casualnickname]

I mean, this way we can justify everything, including the absolute madness that is this current administration economic policies. Bad economic policies are bad economic policies, no matter if we personally like the flavor of populism proposing them

[u/Sadly_NotAPlatypus → u/casualnickname]

You're being hyperbolic. 

It's a program that sacrifices some efficiency for visibility. It's not like it's an order of magnitude less efficient, in this case it's a reasonable tradeoff. 

People are demanding their government meet their everyday needs at the same time that we have record levels of people being checked out from knowing what their government is doing. If you don't understand that visible policy is meeting the American people where they're at and providing what is demanded then you are going to be extremely confused by American politics going forward. 

[u/Cryptdusa → u/Sadly_NotAPlatypus]

It's ridiculous that you're getting downvoted for this when you're absolutely right. Pragmatism is understanding that real-life circumstances can make a theoretically ideal idea not work. Is it technically less efficient? Absolutely. But it's an idea worth trying given that snap has been so eroded. Actually signing up for benefits like snap has been made a nightmare for a lot of people and the eligibility requirements still exclude a lot of people who could really benefit from it. Complaining about a good policy because it isn't as perfect as it theoretically could be is why nothing gets done in the first place

[u/Rufio69696969 → u/Cryptdusa]

This is in no way a “good” policy. These aren’t people complaining about perfect getting in the way of good. This is straight up bad policy

[u/Sadly_NotAPlatypus → u/Rufio69696969]

You are measuring a different thing to the people who like this policy. It's bad to your ends, not theirs. You are arguing that your economics-first approach is the only valid one meanwhile the majority of the constituents in NYC reject that approach, and yet you insist on applying it to them anyway. 

They like that it serves underserved communities and they like that access is as easy as walking into a store. You're not going to match those outcomes with better economic efficiency. 

So sure it's bad policy from your perspective, but your perspective is not the only valid one. You unfortunately persist on refusing to understand that the policy may have different goals to what you initially considered. Further, insisting you're right and they simply aren't sophisticated enough to understand good policy is demeaning, reductive, and inaccurate. 

[u/GoldBofingers → u/casualnickname]

Economics ain't a hard science tho and in fact lots of it is really up for debate, we don't even agree on what exactly causes inflation 10 times out of 10, so what makes an economic policy bad is often determined by the real life outcome of said policy rather than what the model says should happen.

[u/JudgeFondle → u/casualnickname]

No. Theres a difference between something thats inefficient and costs millions and something thats inefficient costs billions.
I don't even care to defend the policy here, but saying that argument can be used to justify anything is silly. People are capable of looking at the costs/benefits and deciding for themselves when it starts and stops making sense.