NY gov needs the rich to pay the bills
“Maybe our first step should be to go down to Palm Beach and see who we can bring home,” she said.
There’s nothing I enjoy more than watching a loudmouth politician having to eat crow after spewing over-the-top statements.
It was New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s turn this week.
Let’s start in 2022 when, full of beans, or something, she told Republicans who didn’t want to pay more to support New York’s generous social welfare system to “get outta town.” Literally, “get outta town. Because you don’t represent our values.”
See for yourself right here.
Reminded me of John Wick being excommunicado in the high-voltage action movie.
Not the first New York governor to do so. Acting like a petty dictator, Andrew Cuomo in 2014 said “extreme conservatives" had no place in New York state. I remember feeling outraged, although I am not an “extreme conservative.”
His definition of “extreme conservatives” was pro gun, pro life, and anti-gay.
I certainly don’t agree with anti-gay, but I don’t think it’s up to the state’s chief officer to tell opponents to self-deport. (I am pro-choice in the first trimester, and pro Second Amendment.)
It was arrogance of power.
Cuomo was a strong liberal, an icon of the Left, but when he ran for mayor years later, he attacked Zohran Mamdani as being too far Left. (It’s like I have a twin.)
Cuomo stopped short of telling him to get outta town.
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As for Hochul, she made a stunning admission in a forum hosted by Politico, as reported in the New York Post, that not only did Republicans leave, but rich people fled too and “our tax base has been eroded.”
Suddenly, she needs more rich people.
“Maybe our first step should be to go down to Palm Beach and see who we can bring home,” she said.
“I have to look at the fact that we are in competition with other states who have less of a tax burden on their corporations and their individuals,” she said.
She has just figured out that the higher taxes go, the fewer people are happy about paying them, and some who are able will take a hike. Between 2020 and 2025, New York state lost 200,000 residents. That’s a lot of people voting with their feet.
I am not reflexively against higher taxes on the rich. I recently (half-heartedly) endorsed a wealth tax. I am objecting here to Hochul’s past tone, and her attitude of entitlement to what belongs to others.
Despite her words, a piece in Politico says Hochul was employing sarcasm to instigate action by Patriotic Millionaires, a group of rich people who think they should be taxed more.
“OK, cut me the checks,” she said to them.
Sarcasm? Begging? Challenging? I’m not sure.
Here’s a clip (taken from a conservative Facebook page), but decide for yourself. Skip the commentary and just concentrate on her words.
One of her defenders, E.J. McMahon, described as a fiscal hawk, seemed to sense sarcasm, according to Politico’s report.
“She wasn’t ‘begging’ the rich to return,” he said, “but warning that more will leave if taxes are raised further.”
More will leave seems very straight forward, neither sarcasm nor ridicule. Between 2020 and 2025, New York lost 200,000 residents.
As British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said, sooner or later you run out of other people’s money, and it gets to be sooner if more of them move to Florida, which has a state income tax of zero.
