New York Governor Begs Wealthy Taxpayers to Stop Leaving the State
This is just embarrassing...
This article originally appeared on ZeroHedge and was republished with permission.
Guest post by Tyler Durden
New York Governor Kathy Hochul became infamous during the pandemic lockdowns for her authoritarian policies and bizarre justifications.
Some may remember her viral speech to a congregation of NY Christians about how “God wants them to take the experimental Covid vaccine”.
“I prayed a lot to God during this time and you know what - God did answer our prayers. He made the smartest men and women, the scientists, the doctors, the researchers - he made them come up with a vaccine. That is from God to us and we must say, thank you, God. Thank you.”
“All of you, yes, I know you’re vaccinated, you’re the smart ones, but you know there’s people out there who aren’t listening to God and what God wants.“
“I need you to be my apostles. I need you to go out and talk about it and say, we owe this to each other. We love each other. Jesus taught us to love one another and how do you show that love but to care about each other enough to say, please get the vaccine because I love you...”
The Orwellian horror of Hochul’s New York led directly to an unprecedented flight of intelligent citizens and wealthy business owners. NY experienced a net lost of nearly 1 million residents from 2020 to 2023. But it didn’t stop there.
Draconian pandemic mandates were not the only reason for the exodus. The state’s crushing tax requirements post-covid have also inspired another 250,000 net loss of citizens from 2024 through 2025. The state taxes are nearly three times higher than the national average. Property taxes are 45% higher and the cost of living is around 50% higher than the national average.
Furthermore, depending on the market sector, taxes on businesses run 50% to 100% higher than the national average. On top of all this, Democrats in the legislature have consistently pushed for a wealth tax or “millionaires tax”; an action which Hochul opposes, but only because she sees the writing on the wall and is a bit smarter compared to fanatical socialists like Zohran Mamdani.
During a Q&A last week at Politico’s New York Agenda: Albany Summit, the Governor surprised with a rare moment of clarity (or honesty) when she admitted that the state’s tax base had been eroded. She essentially begged for wealthy taxpayers to come back from red states like Florida and support New York’s social welfare programs. Recent data shows that NYC spent $81,000 per homeless person in 2025 - That’s higher that the annual income of 65% of all hard working NYC residents.
Hochul also lamented the fact that high income taxpayers are “no longer captive” and are able to relocate with ease.
The full discussion can be seen here.
What Hochul and NY Democrats are experiencing is the “find out moment” after a decade of F’ing around with the public, their freedoms and their hard earned money. It is an outcome that conservatives have been warning about for years and a crisis which Democrats claimed could “never happen”.
No blue state engaged in extensive welfare programs (which often funnel money to illegal migrants) is in a position to lose 1.2 million taxpayers. Not to mention, many of these residents are counted among some of the wealthiest in the region. Businesses have been leaving NY in droves because they have been abused by socialist politicians and lawmakers and called “evil” by socialist activists. Now, they are walking away and they’re taking their money with them.
When confronted with this inevitability, Democrats like Mamdani argue that they need to establish methods for “forcing” the wealthy to stay. This is the natural progression of any socialist system - As long a the populace has alternatives, they can and will walk away, exposing the failure that socialism represents. Socialism on a large scale only functions when people are trapped and have nowhere else to go.
Hochul doesn’t have the power to make this happen, so, she has reverted to pleading instead. At bottom, if she really wants to save New York’s economy, Democrats like her would have to step down. As long as leftists remain in power, the state will continue to bleed residents and the tax base will crumble.
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lol, progressives have always had difficulty anticipating 2nd and 3rd order effects from their wacky policies, but now they apparently can't anticipate first order effects.
Antagonizing the people most able to leave seems a silly strategy.
Well then cut taxes and red tape