Comptroller Mark Levine’s truth telling could make him the real anti-Mamdani

Someone must’ve slipped truth serum into the Municipal Building’s water, because city Comptroller Mark Levine’s rash of honesty is starting to make him seem like city government’s true anti-Mamdani.

Levine, a Democrat who endorsed Zohran Mamdani for mayor, committed a brazen act of candor Sunday when he blasted New York rent laws for fueling the housing crisis.

“We just have a shortage of supply of homes,” argued the comptroller. Yet “in rent-stabilized buildings, we have tens of thousands of apartments” sitting vacant because the laws make it too difficult for landlords to rent these units.

“When an apartment becomes vacant” and needs “expensive renovations,” owners aren’t allowed “to raise their rent enough to cover the cost” — so they have to let them sit idle.

Bingo. It’s an utter no-brainer (we’ve often made that same point), yet city and state lawmakers insist on ignoring it.

Good for Levine for demanding landlords get greater “flexibilities” to recover renovation costs.

Kudos, too, for stating another housing truth: It “costs too damn much” to build new apartments in the city, thanks to local policies.

Government “has so many rules and regulations,” grumbles Levine.

He might’ve also noted that Mamdani’s rent freeze is driving vacancy rates ever lower, and market-rate rents ever higher — making it nearly impossible to find an affordable apartment.

But this isn’t the first time Levine has displayed anti-Zo frankness.

In contrast to the mayor’s boasts that he closed a $12 billion budget gap, Levine warns the city is still spending more than it takes in and this year’s budget is “balanced” only with Band-Aid solutions, like one-time cash infusions and borrowing, that’ll create ever-bigger shortfalls later on.

Levine also spoke plainly about the logic of investing the city’s pension funds in Israel bonds, a position Mamdani — who supports the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement — opposes.

The comptroller’s “No. 1 responsibility,” Levine notes, is to “maintain a healthy pension fund” that “protects the finances of our retirees,” and “Israel bonds have been an extremely solid investment.”

He also points to the lack of any gripes over city investments in countries with truly dubious human-rights records: China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia. . . .

No, we’re not expecting Levine to launch all-out political war against the mayor any time soon (not before the next election cycle, anyway).

But if New York’s Zocialists start targeting Levine for defeat, you’ll know his truth telling has hit home.