NYC mayor Mamdani launches new finance commission called…COGE – The Independent
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‘New Yorkers deserve a city government as careful with their money as they are,’ Mamdani said when announcing his new COGE initiative
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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has taken a page out of President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE playbook to evaluate the Big Apple’s finances.
“We are introducing COGE — the Commission on Government Efficiency,” Mamdani wrote on X Thursday.
“This Commission will find ways for our city to work smarter, faster, and more effectively for working people. New Yorkers deserve a city government as careful with their money as they are,” the democratic socialist mayor added.
COGE will be holding hearings in all five boroughs and meet with community members “who will shape how we build a more responsive and accountable government,” the mayor said in a follow-up post.
The new initiative sounds eerily similar to the Musk-headed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, created shortly after Trump returned to the White House.
In the name of slashing government waste, the Trump administration cut the federal workforce and notably dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, a congressionally authorized agency.
More than 300,000 federal workers and contractors were ousted during the DOGE cuts, NBC News reported in April.
DOGE proved to be widely unpopular. Nearly half, 47 percent, of voters thought the initiative was cutting too much, according to a poll from The Center Square released in April 2025.
At the time, Musk had a net approval rating of 35 percent in a Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll.
In the survey, 46 percent of Americans strongly disapproved of the way the billionaire was handling his job in the Trump administration, and another 10 percent somewhat disapproved.
Musk’s White House job didn’t last long. He left the Trump administration in May 2025. DOGE as a whole disbanded in November, eight months before the initiative was set to end.
“That doesn’t exist,” Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor told Reuters at the time.
Whether COGE will be more successful than Trump’s federal government money-saving efforts remains to be seen.
COGE will be chaired by Patrick Gaspard, who previously worked as executive director of the Democratic National Committee and served as a close aide to former President Barack Obama.
The first public hearing for Mamdani’s initiative will take place on June 9, CBS News reported.
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