NYC Mayor Just Quoted Reagan at a Government Grocery Event and What He Said Next Has Conservatives Furious

Zohran Mamdani stood at a podium this week, quoted Ronald Reagan, and said "I disagree."

He wasn't venting at a fundraiser.

He was announcing a massively expensive socialist plan – and what he's building has a track record millions barely lived through already.

The Quote That Said Everything

Zohran Mamdani – the Democratic Socialist sworn in as NYC mayor in January – was rallying support for his plan to build government-owned grocery stores when he invoked the 40th president.

He quoted Reagan's famous line about the nine most terrifying words in the English language: "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

Then he said, "I disagree."

Mamdani has allocated $70 million in city funds to build five government-owned grocery stores across New York's five boroughs – one per borough by the end of his first term. The first store is planned for East Harlem's La Marqueta, with construction costs alone hitting $30 million for a single 9,000-square-foot location. That's nearly four times what it costs a private company to build a comparable store.

He calls it a "grand experiment." History already graded that experiment.

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The World Tried This Already

Every country that has handed grocery stores to the government has lived to regret it.

Venezuela nationalized its supermarket chains under Hugo Chávez with the same promises Mamdani is making now – lower prices, food security, helping the poor. Shelves emptied. Government warehouses filled with food that never reached stores. Families sent children to school alone so both parents could spend the day hunting for basics.

Daniel Di Martino, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute who grew up in Venezuela, put it plainly: government grocery stores "were subject to extensive corruption by government officials that awarded contracts to friends, they sold rotten or low quality food, and they served as a way to make voters dependent on the government and force them to vote for the socialist leaders."

The Soviet Union built its entire food distribution system around the state. Boris Yeltsin visited a Houston grocery store in 1989 and was so shaken by the abundance on the shelves that he reportedly went quiet for the rest of the trip – thinking about what seventy years of socialism had cost his own people.

Cuba has run the model for six decades. The shelves are still bare.

Mamdani called that track record a "grand experiment." Your neighbors in Brooklyn are going to be the test subjects.

The $30 Million Lesson New York Already Paid For Somewhere Else

There's a reason Reagan's line has lasted forty years.

Government doesn't help. Government controls. The moment bureaucrats control your food supply, you stop being a customer and start being a dependent.

The East Harlem site Mamdani chose already has roughly 45 grocery stores within a 35-minute walk, including an Aldi and a Costco. Kansas City invested $17 million over ten years in a city-owned Sun Fresh Market – with the same rent-free, tax-exempt advantages Mamdani is promising. Shoppers stayed away because of crime. The store failed. A Target near Mamdani's proposed La Marqueta site closed in 2023 for the same reason – "organized retail crime" and employee safety concerns, in the company's own words.

New York City is already running a $5.4 billion budget deficit. The $70 million Mamdani wants doesn't include operating costs, staffing, or even the feasibility study. And it doesn't account for what happens to the immigrant-owned bodegas and corner markets when a tax-exempt, rent-free government competitor opens next door.

Reagan's answer – get out of the way and let the market work – built the most prosperous nation in history. Mamdani just told you, on camera, that he thinks Reagan had it wrong.

History is about to remind New York City who was right.

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Sources:

• NYC Mayor's Office, "Mayor Mamdani Announces La Marqueta as First Site Identified for City's Public Grocery Stores," nyc.gov, April 14, 2026.
• Elaine Mallon, "Mamdani's Government-Run Grocery Stores Will Fail Like Every Socialist Experiment, Economist Says," Fox News, April 14, 2026.
• C. Jarrett Dieterle, "Zohran Mamdani's $70 Million Grocery Gamble," Reason, February 28, 2026.
• Amanda Macias, "NYC Mayor Mamdani's City-Run Grocery Store Proposal Draws Pushback from East Harlem Small Business Owners," Fox News, May 2026.
• Howard Husock, "Mamdani's Grocery Stores Undermine His Broader Agenda," American Enterprise Institute, May 2026.
• Daily Signal Staff, "Mamdani Moves Forward on Government-Run Grocery Store Plan," The Daily Signal, April 14, 2026.