I left New York for Florida — Gov. Hochul’s desperate plea won’t bring me home
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Two weeks ago, New York Governor Kathy Hochul made a surprising admission. Speaking at Politico’s “New York Agenda: Albany Summit” on March 11, the governor said his state now lacks “high-net-worth” residents who need to pay for the “generous social programs we want to have.” Hochul said some “patriotic” rich people are taking action to close the state’s budget deficit, and of course it’s okay to write him a check. But if you really want to help, Hochul implored his wealthy supporters: “Visit Palm Beach and see who you can bring back home, because our tax base has been eroded.”
As Hochul said that last line, he made it sound as if his wealthy friends leaving for sunnier pastures were the fault of his supporters who wrote the checks to maintain his dire situation.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul recently said: “There were people in Manhattan who could only work in the office, and they were captives of our state.” They are no longer prisoners. (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket)
His comments were surprising because Hochul played a big role in pushing Palm Beachers to get out in the first place. In 2022, Hochul said, “Get on a bus and go to Florida where you belong, okay? Get out of town because you don’t represent our values.”
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He was talking to Republicans and they heard him loud and clear. And he wasn’t the only one making such comments. His predecessor in 2014, Andrew Cuomo, struck a similar note. “Ultra-conservatives have no place in New York state, because that’s not what New Yorkers are,” he said, referring to policy positions such as abortion and gun rights.
And these are the “moderate” Democrats in the state!
Those who could go left. The deluge began under Cuomo and continued apace under Hochul.
I AM LEAVING NEW YORK TO GO TO FLORIDA. I NEVER THINK OF DOING IT
Didn’t they really think they were narrowing their own tax base? Who did they think was paying for wonderful, outrageously expensive social services? The blue-haired protesters who elected Mayor Mamdani?
New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s rhetoric played a big role in forcing New Yorkers to flee to Palm Beach, Florida in the first place over the last few years. (Julia Nikhinson/AP Photo)
Cuomo could be forgiven for not realizing in 2014 that he needed the tax base much more than they needed him. But Hochul’s comments come two years after people like me had long since disappeared, and it was clear that remote working had already changed the business landscape. “There were people in Manhattan who could only work in an office, and they were captives of our state,” Hochul said in the final clip. They are no longer prisoners.
MAMDANI’S ‘PAINFUL’ TAX TIME THREAT WAS MOCKED BY THE WASHINGTON POST TO PROVE THAT ‘SOCIALIST UTOPIA IS EXPENSIVE’
My family left New York City because Hochul catered to teachers unions and refused to open public schools, which were needlessly closed while private schools remained open. When schools finally opened full time (a year after states like Florida), kids were kept in masks until 2022, even outdoors, sitting on the floor for lunch, and wearing masks between bites despite being at extremely low risk of COVID. Meanwhile, Hochul, who is in his 60s and therefore at much higher risk from Covid, could be seen wandering around the state without a mask.
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Other New Yorkers left as the chaos on the city’s streets got worse, and we stopped talking about it. The immigration problem had escalated, and New Yorkers were told they had to continue paying for hotel rooms or debit cards for people arriving illegally, lest they be seen as aligned with Donald Trump. In this city, once America’s jewel, homelessness had worsened with the emergence of children begging on the streets, a feature of third world countries. We left because everything was falling apart and the New York state government didn’t care.
The problem wasn’t taxes, at least not just taxes. This isn’t exactly like the Onion’s 2010 headline: “8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York City Is a Terrible Place to Live.” New York was always a hard place to live, and it was always expensive. What has changed in the last decade is that it has become impossible to trust that the people in charge are working to make the situation better.
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Was Hochul serious when he said Republicans should leave New York? Was he serious when he supported socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani? Who knows? It has become impossible to believe that the governor works for anyone other than the special interest groups that support him.
It wasn’t just extremely wealthy New Yorkers who looked around and realized their tax dollars weren’t being used properly. A large number of non-billionaires and multimillionaires also left. The texture of the city has changed. No, Governor Hochul can no longer hold New Yorkers “captive.” It’s too late to bring them “home” now. They are at home; It’s not New York anymore.
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