There’s something almost poetic about watching a progressive governor finally admit what the rest of us have known for years. Kathy Hochul sat down this week at the Politico New York Agenda summit and did something remarkable. She told the truth.
Not the whole truth, mind you. That would require too much self-awareness. But enough of it to make you wonder if she’s been reading the room or just checking her state’s revenue reports with increasing panic. Hochul actually said out loud that she needs wealthy New Yorkers to come back from Florida because, and I’m paraphrasing here, someone’s got to pay for all those generous social programs.
The exact quote is worth savoring. She’s “conscious of the fact that I need people who are high-net-worth to support the generous social programs that we want to have in our state.” Then she suggested maybe someone should head down to Palm Beach and convince these folks to come home because New York’s tax base has been eroded. Eroded. Like it’s some natural phenomenon, like coastal erosion or wear and tear. Not a direct result of policy choices that treated successful people like captive revenue streams.
You know what’s fascinating about this moment? It’s not just an admission of economic reality. It’s a window into the fundamental contradiction at the heart of progressive governance. They build entire budgets around soaking the rich, then act surprised when the rich do what any rational person would do. They leave.
Florida doesn’t have a state income tax. Florida has sunshine and competent governance and a governor who doesn’t view prosperity as something to be redistributed. Florida has become the promised land for anyone tired of being treated like a piggy bank with unlimited funds. And it’s not just Florida. Texas, Tennessee, Nevada. Red states across the country have been welcoming New York’s refugees with open arms and competitive tax structures.
The migration numbers tell a story that politicians like Hochul would rather ignore. High earners aren’t just complaining about taxes anymore. They’re voting with their feet, their families, their businesses. They’re taking their capital and their entrepreneurial energy to places that appreciate them instead of resenting them.
Here’s the thing about calling your wealthiest residents captives, which Hochul did in a previous moment of accidental honesty. Captives eventually escape. And once they’re free, they rarely volunteer to return to captivity. No amount of begging changes that calculus.
The irony runs deeper still. Hochul wants these wealthy New Yorkers back to fund social programs that, let’s be honest, haven’t exactly delivered spectacular results despite decades of ever-increasing budgets. New York City’s public schools still struggle. The subway system remains a disaster. Homelessness persists. But sure, if we could just get a few more millionaires to cut some checks, everything would be fine.
This is the socialist fever dream in action. Tax the successful to fund programs that create dependency, then express shock when the successful decide they’d rather live somewhere that values productivity over redistribution. It’s economic policy designed by people who’ve never had to meet a payroll or compete for customers.
Conservatives have been making this argument forever. Low taxes attract talent and capital. High taxes drive them away. It’s not complicated. But progressive politicians keep acting like they’ve discovered some new economic model where the old rules don’t apply. Then reality arrives, usually in the form of budget shortfalls and population decline, and suddenly they’re making desperate pleas for people to come back.
The saddest part? Hochul still doesn’t really get it. She’s not proposing tax reform or regulatory relief. She’s just asking nicely for people to voluntarily return to a system that views them as ATMs. That’s not a policy solution. That’s wishful thinking dressed up as governance.
New York could be incredible. It has world-class universities, cultural institutions, business infrastructure. But none of that matters if the people running the state treat success as something suspicious rather than something worth celebrating and protecting.
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