Governor Hochul pleads with the former “captives” to return to NY so they can have their assets confiscated
New York Gov Kathy Hochul is begging wealthy people who have moved to Florida and Texas to come back to New York and pay taxes. ?
"I need people who are high net worth to support the generous social programs that we want to have in our state. Now, there are some patriotic… pic.twitter.com/B4ql1ktcq6
— Based Jessica (@RealJessica) March 18, 2026
Quotes from Hochul:
I need people who are high net worth to support the generous social programs that we want to have in our state. Now, 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 go down to Palm Beach and see who you can bring back home.”
I think many “high net worth” people are immune to Hochul’s guilt-tripping. If you make taxes too high for the wealthy, a significant number will leave. They are rich, and it’s relatively easy for them to do. Why not try to attract them instead? It might even raise more revenue if you more of them at a lower tax rate rather than fewer at a higher tax rate.
More from Hochul:
There were people who could only work in an office in Manhattan and work in New York state. And they were captives to our state, they were going to stay. We saw that that’s not the case. Wall Street businesses looking at Texas, they’re not going there because they have a nicer governor. They’re going there because of the tax rate.
Love that word: “captives.” And what freed the captives from their chains? The extreme response to COVID and the accommodations to it are what made going to the office less necessary. So Hochul is at least partly responsible for that, too – she became governor in August of 2021 after Cuomo left; prior to that she’d been Lieutenant Governor since 2014.
As far as “nice” governors go – who cares? Plus, she thinks she’s “nice”? I seem to recall this from Hochul in August of 2022:
“Trump and Zeldin and Molinaro – just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong. OK? Get out of town. Because you don’t represent our values,” added Hochul, who raised eyebrows last week for a dig against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at a Manhattan event commemorating the Holocaust. …
… [T]he first female governor in state history has a message for political opponents who don’t share her believes on issues like abortion rights have no place in the Empire State.
“You’re not New Yorkers, because we come from a long line of people who fought for women’s rights that happened here first,” she said Monday.
You kept telling people to leave, and now you want them back because you want their money for the special interest groups of the Democrat Party. And you’re not even hiding it.
The problem of helping people who can’t find jobs, which is kinda good, becomes a govt program to pay folk for not working. And cutting benefits if they do work, so many of them choose to never be on the bottom rung of working, when that income level is only a little above the top of the welfare pillar.
Just as govts get addicted, so too do the recipients of the social program free money, addicted to OPM (other people’s money).
Poor folk willing to work need more help, especially at finding jobs & getting hired. Poor folk unwilling to work should be refused govt benefits.
We need more programs, govt & private, to offer more jobs to low IQ & low work experience folk. The social programs need benefit off-ramps, not cliffs. So making an extra $1000 in income shouldn’t reduce benefits by more than $300 (30%). There also needs to be better sharing of names of benefit receivers so that total benefits for all persons in the household are known by the monitors of the programs — and all programs need better anti-fraud monitoring.
Redistributive change schemes with benefits.
In penance for some past sins, I will occasionally listen to NPR. During the commercial breaks, they will give a long list of companies who support them. I pay attention to these in case I do business with them. One that I do business with is the Schwab brokerage. I looked up their headquarters location: Westlake, Texas.
Doing some further research, the company was founded in 1971 by Charles Schwab in San Francisco. So they are a refugee from another high tax state.
I do not think Hochul’s left-wing solidarity pitch is going to get much traction.
I fled NY State long ago, though my family lived in Upstate. Except for its nutty politics and harsh winters, it is actually a beautiful State, with permanent Adirondack wilderness written into its Constitution. Needs to be 2 states, NYC and the rest. To H with NYC.
Apples and Oranges: Contrasting economic policy in New York and Florida
Total State Expenditures per Capita
Florida $5,611
New York $11,743
Texas $4,617
Wealthy people in New York might tolerate tax increases if Mamdani and others were not proposing to confiscate their property through taxes on assets, strip them of their income through rent controls, and generate disorder through instituting police procedures and prosecutorial discretion which favor criminals over ordinary people.
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The pleasant aspect of Hochul is that she and her husband remained married and ordered their life so that their children could attend school in one place. She had her husband have spent their whole lives ensconced in the Democratic Party nomenklatura and (last I checked) so had both of her kids.
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Much you can do to repair service provision in New York and the tax system. The Democratic Party has no interest in that.
How dare The Rich refuse the status of ATM for the Welfare State!
“I think many “high net worth” people are immune to Hochul’s guilt-tripping. If you make taxes too high for the wealthy, a significant number will leave. They are rich, and it’s relatively easy for them to do.
Simply raising the Federal tax rate on the ‘greedy’ can eliminate that ‘dodge’.
Once passed, the proposed Global Tax on multinational corporations can later be extended to cover private ‘wealth’ as well. Collectivists can never rest until all resides within the hands of the State. Which surely will ‘cure’ the problem of running out of other people’s money. As ‘happiness’ after all lies in not being allowed to own anything.
Incentives make the world go ’round.
@ Geoffrey > ” Which surely will ‘cure’ the problem of running out of other people’s money.”
Alas, socialist collectivist states, even one as large as the Western world*) eventually run out of ALL the money: everyone is in the cart and no one is pulling it.
*In re the proposed Global Tax: You don’t really think China, India, Russia, and pretty much any other country would assent to pooling their wealth with anyone else, do you?
Practically, who would assess and collect the taxes, and enforce the collection, and then distribute the revenues?
And monitor the fraud, excuse me: the hiring of consultants and awarding of grants to NGOs and, oh, maybe, checking how many hospices (or “learing centers”) are in the same building?
@ Tom Grey > “Just as govts get addicted, so too do the recipients of the social program free money, addicted to OPM”
All of your suggestions are as old as the “social safety net” itself: any that made it into practice eroded as soon as the people in the organizations (governmental and “non”) handling the programs realized that solving the problems would decrease the amount of money flowing to themselves.
That’s why continually funding, for example, homeless people generates more of them.
Clearly, Hochul and others on the left have never learned about the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, Sloth; as she seems to commit at least half at the same time!
“Wall Street businesses looking at Texas, they’re not going there because they have a nicer governor.”
If Hochul is admitting that Greg Abbott is nicer than her, I would agree.
What’s interesting to me is how utterly incapable they are of connecting the dots.
They pass laws and institute regulations and make proclamations with no thought for the 2nd and 3rd and 4th order effects of those actions, even though they are predicted thoroughly and loudly by those with more common sense and economic acumen, and then act completely surprised when those predictions come true.
The scary thing is they do it over and over and over again even under the weight of the entirety of human history telling them they’re wrong. They are not only incapable of connecting the dots, but also incapable of learning from past mistakes.
That’s a bad combination.
And I guarantee you…if Hochul could get away with it, she’d send the NY State Police down there, drag those selfish rich people back to New York kicking and screaming and keep them there whether they want to be there or not. It’s for the “common good” you know.
Democrats still love slavery. They can’t give it up.
Therefore all their Governor’s are lusting to recapture the fruits of The Fugitive Slave Act.
The problem of helping people who can’t find jobs, which is kinda good, becomes a govt program to pay folk for not working. And cutting benefits if they do work, so many of them choose to never be on the bottom rung of working, when that income level is only a little above the top of the welfare pillar.
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That’s not the issue, in truth.
Sailorcurt:
What’s interesting to me is how utterly incapable they are of connecting the dots.
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Nope Nope Nope – these people are not stupid.
They are Marxists – their *intention* is to destroy the West and consume the spoils. Until President Donald came along, they were getting ready to deliver the coup de grace and take ever more overt control of most of the power centers of society.
We Americans were/are very very close to getting energy rationed by political correctness (as in Italy) and a policing of opinions that can bankrupt you (UK).
They are not well-intentioned but confused dreamers. They *want* to create an impoverished, dependent citizenry.
As long as they get their dacha among the smoldering ruins.
They are Marxists – their *intention* is to destroy the West and consume the spoils. Until President Donald came along, they were getting ready to deliver the coup de grace and take ever more overt control of most of the power centers of society.
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Kathy Hochul doesn’t know Marxism from tiddlywinks. She’s a political careerist who takes her cues from those around her. About the only opinions peculiar to herself to which she’s ever given voice would be an aversion to Big Box stores (during her time as a suburban politician) and an interest in ‘women’s issues’ (during her time as a college student).
I read this book by economist William Voegeli in the way-back year when it was published (2012). While the details have probably been rendered obsolete by swelling expansion of programs, the basic premises are enduring:
https://www.amazon.com/Never-Enough-America%C2%92s-Limitless-Welfare/dp/1594035849/ref=asc_df_1594035849
If she wants to be a profile in courage she would use her executive powers to remove Zorro Mamdummy from the office of Mayor of New York City,
Volunteered for US Army at 18. Became a spy against Communist countries in a division of NSA and hated Communism ever since. Never went back to NYC because to me it smelled and looked like Communism.
Today without any doubt NYC and NY are run by Communists and Muslims. What a perfect combination: The Red/Green Alliance screwing up much of Europe.
“Now, there are some patriotic millionaires who stepped up. ”
Yeah, I’ll bet.
Care to name names?