NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently proposed upping New York City's budget to $125.8 billion. That's for roughly 8.5 million people. The entire state of Florida, which has 23 million residents, three times the population of NYC, runs on $117.6 billion budget.

Rogan's guest that day, author, Michael Malice, refused to believe the numbers until Rogan showed him.

Rogan said, "Mamdani is trying to figure out a way to use his budget. His budget is higher than the budget of the entire state of Florida, which has three times more people."

Malice's response, "No, it's not. Is it really?"

It is. Rogan asked his producer Jamie to pull the numbers live on air. The Florida House proposed budget came in at $117 billion. New York City's proposed budget: $127 billion. Malice watched the figures appear on screen. "HOLY SH*T!" was the verbatim reaction.

The per-capita math makes it worse. New York City spends approximately $14,800 per resident. Florida spends approximately $5,100. That's not double. That's triple per capita — a city government outspending a state government by a factor of three on a per-person basis, and nobody in the city's political class seems to find that remarkable.

What they do find remarkable is that they need more. The city has floated a 9.5% property tax hike on top of the existing $125.8 billion burn rate. Part of the budget includes $1.2 billion earmarked for migrant services — a line item that didn't exist a few years ago and now costs more than most mid-sized American cities spend on everything combined. Rogan and his guest had something to say about that budget line item as well...

The standard defense of New York's spending is density and complexity. Running the subway system, maintaining public hospitals, staffing the NYPD — these are expensive operations with no equivalent in Tallahassee. But Florida runs its own highway system, its own Medicaid program, its own law enforcement across 67 counties, its own public universities, and its own hurricane response infrastructure for a coastline that stretches over 1,300 miles. It does all of that for $8 billion less than what one city spends.

The broader pattern is familiar to anyone who's watched blue-city governance over the last decade. Budgets grow. Services don't improve. The money disappears into layers of bureaucracy, consultant contracts, and emergency allocations for problems that were supposed to be temporary. The $1.2 billion migrant line item was introduced as a one-time crisis response. It's now a permanent fixture of the budget, and it's growing in sanctuary cities like NYC.

Florida, meanwhile, has no state income tax. New York City residents pay federal income tax, state income tax, and city income tax — then watch their property taxes climb another 9.5%.

$14,800 per person in New York. $5,100 per person in Florida. Same country.