Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently got the political equivalent of what baseball players call a brushback pitch — a fastball deliberately thrown dangerously close to a batter’s head in order to intimidate the player, who must flinch or duck to avoid a devastating injury.

Hizzoner is getting municipal chin music from the major bond-rating agencies: Moody’s formally changed its outlook on the city’s finances from “stable” to “negative,” and S&P Global Ratings opined that Mamdani’s budget plan will “make it difficult to sustain budgetary balance beyond fiscal years 2026 and 2027.” The negative outlook from the agencies is a warning: The next step could be a downgrade of the city’s bond rating, which would raise the cost of borrowing money for routine city operations.

“This is significant. It’s the first time since COVID that they’ve adjusted our outlook from stable to negative,” New York City comptroller Mark Levine told me. “There is a problem here, and it’s very simple: We are spending more money than we’re taking in in New York City, and we are proposing currently to drain our reserve funds to cover that. This was a red flag to Moody’s, that’s why they spoke out.”

“I think that the decision to revise the outlook, frankly, is premature,” Mamdani complained, pointing out that the city’s overall credit rating remains strong and has not been downgraded. But the message from Wall Street seemed crystal clear: Unless Mamdani adopts a more fiscally conservative approach, we will punish City Hall in the markets.

That’s a tough pill to swallow, but Mamdani can’t afford a scorched-earth confrontation with........

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