\u2018Tax the rich!\u201d That used to be the sort of sentiment you might expect from a student who\u2019d just discovered a bit of Marxism and had yet to pay their first tax bill. But now New Yorkers are lucky enough to have a mayor who thinks this dumb slogan should be turned into policy.<\/p>\n
Why is it dumb? For several reasons. Not the least of which is that it is so misleading. Saying \u201ctax the rich\u201d suggests that the rich aren\u2019t already taxed. In fact the wealthiest people in this city already pay more than their fair share of taxes.<\/p>\n
As Mayor Mamadani and his merry band of Marxists must know by now, the top 1% of New York taxpayers are responsible for almost half of the total tax revenues of this city. To put it another way, 99% of New Yorkers only cover 50% of the tax revenue of this city.<\/p>\n
I suppose \u201ctax the 99%\u201d doesn\u2019t quite have the same ring to it. And it doesn\u2019t play to that sweet cocktail of resentment and envy that always underlies the policies of the far left.<\/p>\n
As it happens, the other 99% of us New Yorkers may be about to learn the hard way what it looks like when you try to make the 1% the enemies of the state.<\/p>\n
Mayor Mamdani\u2019s creepy, stalky video<\/a> from outside the New York apartment of financier Ken Griffin<\/a> has already proven where Hizzoner\u2019s student politics lead.<\/p>\n After smugly doxing one of New York\u2019s most successful residents, what did our mayor achieve? Only to make Griffin literally take his business elsewhere.<\/p>\n Didn\u2019t work in the UK<\/p>\n As The Post reported yesterday, Griffin was so appalled by the mayor\u2019s grinning stunt that Griffin has threatened to scrap his hedge fund Citadel\u2019s $6 billion development on Park Avenue. And who will be the beneficiary of this? Why, Florida of course. Griffin said this week that he is planning on taking more of his business to Miami over the coming years as a \u201cdirect consequence of the mayor\u2019s poor decision here with respect to his posting of that video.\u201d<\/p>\n It isn\u2019t an overreaction. After all, this week Gov. Hochul<\/a> joined in with Mamdani\u2019s \u201ctax the rich\u201d antics by deciding to try to fill New York\u2019s fiscal black hole by putting yet another tax on second-home owners in the city. The mayor and governor are scrambling to fill the black hole in the budget. A black hole that is estimated to be somewhere between $10 billion and $12 billion a year over the next couple of years.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a large amount to fill, for sure. But the worst way to try to fill it is to chase the most successful people in New York out of the city.<\/p>\n If anyone doubts that, they should look at the results in other places where left-wing governments have tried a similar formula.<\/p>\n The left-wing Labour government in the UK tried a \u201ctax the rich\u201d policy after coming into office two years ago. The result? Thousands of multimillionaires simply upped and left the UK.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n As I have mentioned here before, there is a big difference between the UK and New York. It is actually quite hard to move your operations, office and life from London to, say, Milan. But thousands of wealthy Londoners did it anyway. By contrast \u2014 as Griffin has shown \u2014 it is exceptionally easy to pack up and leave New York for Florida.<\/p>\n Thousands of successful New Yorkers have already made the move. Every time I go there, I see more and more of the type of people who until recently made New York the thriving center of their operations.<\/p>\n NYC needs its rich<\/p>\n Even before Mamdani\u2019s election, the city was chasing out our most successful people. Up to 2023, it has been estimated that $660 billion of wealth had already left New York. That\u2019s Hochul and Mamdani\u2019s budget black hole filled many times over just there. In recent years, New York has been the biggest loser of wealth of all the blue states.<\/p>\n That\u2019s quite an accomplishment given the competition.<\/p>\n