OPINION:
In 2022, while campaigning for governor of New York, Republican Lee Zeldin consistently hit Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul for her tax-and-spend policies.
Her response?
“Just jump on a bus and head down to Florida, where you belong, OK? Get outta town … because you don’t represent our values. You are not New Yorkers,” she said.
Mr. Zeldin lost that election and has gone on to lead the Environmental Protection Agency under President Trump. After Ms. Hochul’s victory, many wealthy New Yorkers took her advice and voted with their feet by moving to Florida.
From 2020 to 2025, red states gained about 3.3 million people via internal U.S. migration, while blue states lost approximately 3.8 million, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The fastest-growing states are predominantly red, including South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Idaho and North Carolina. Florida and Texas have no state income taxes, providing a major cost-of-living incentive.
New York experienced a significant population exodus in 2024, with more than 415,000 residents leaving the state. The United Van Lines’ 2025 National Movers Study showed that 58% of all 6,400 moves booked left New York, compared with 42% of moves being inbound. The only state with more moves booked outbound was New Jersey, another high-tax, blue state.
When it comes to income taxes, New York taxes its residents more aggressively, at 14.8%, than anywhere else in the country. Democrats in the State Assembly want to raise that rate to 15.9% and in the Senate to 15.3% to fund more welfare and public worker benefits in the Empire State.
A new report from the state’s comptroller showed New York City taxpayers spent about $81,705 per homeless person last year, up from $28,428 six years earlier, as homelessness worsened by 25%. For context, New York City’s median household income is $81,228.
Even the liberal Washington Post editorial board last week had to question where all the cash was going and whether it could be spent more effectively.
“Every unsheltered homeless person would technically join the middle class if the city just wrote them a check for what it’s spending on their behalf,” the paper noted.
This, as socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled a $127 billion spending plan, the largest in the city’s history, which relies on higher taxes and no spending cuts. The mayor pledged a 9.5% property tax hike if Albany did not approve state-level increases on corporations and millionaires.
Three million residential units and 100,000 commercial properties would be targeted in the first tax hike since 2001. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, noted that the 2001 increase was devastating to the state.
“Tax the rich, tax the rich, tax the rich. We did that. God forbid the rich leave,” Mr. Cuomo noted in a 2019 Wall Street Journal interview.
Already, the top 1% of taxpayers pay 46% of personal income tax in New York, and New York City accounts for 90% of the state’s population loss.
About 765,000 of the 8.4 million residents of New York City were preparing to leave. About 9% of New Yorkers said they would “definitely” leave the city if Mr. Mamdani won the election in November, a survey conducted by J.L. Partners showed before the election.
“If those residents were to leave, it would be equal to the population of Washington DC, Las Vegas, or Seattle fleeing the city,” the New York Post noted of the potential exodus.
“If anywhere near that number actually left, the economic impact would be seismic,” pollster James Johnson told the outlet. “Older New Yorkers, Staten Islanders, and White voters are the most likely to say they would pack up and go.”
With Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis openly declaring the Sunshine State a “free state” for people looking to leave behind blue, tax-and-spend jurisdictions, Ms. Hochul is beginning to feel the squeeze.
In a dramatic reversal of her 2022 comments for New Yorkers to jump on a bus and leave the state if they didn’t like her policies, she is now begging them to come back.
“There are some patriotic millionaires who stepped up. OK, cut me the checks. If you want to be supportive — but maybe the first step should be [to] go down to Palm Beach and see who you can bring back home, because our tax has been eroded,” she said at a Politico event this month.
However, she gave these “high net worth” individuals no indication that her tax binge would end anytime soon.
She pleaded with them to remain in the Empire State to support the “generous social programs we want to have in our state.”
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.
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