Damon (7:23)
They're gone. Tax base eroded, as she put it. The money dries up. The budget holes get bigger. The generous programs start looking a little less generous when there's no one left to pay for them. So what does she do? She doesn't say. You know what? Maybe we overdid it here on the taxes. Maybe we should lower the rates, cut regulation, make New York attractive again. No, no, no, no. That would require admitting the progressive dream is really a nightmare. Instead, she turns to the very millionaires who stuck around, the patriotic ones who cut her checks and says, hey, go back down there to Palm beach and round up your old buddies and bring them back home. Tell them to come be patriots again. Our tax base has been eroded. Can you believe this? Tax them until they flee in droves. Chase them out, which pitch with with pitchforks labeled fair share. And then when the state's broke because, surprise, surprise, the rich are mobile and they don't like being treated like pinatas. Send the remaining loyal ones on a recruitment mission to Florida like it's some kind of socialist safari. Go fetch the escaped wealthy and bring them back so we can tax them to death again this time around. Look at New York right now. We've got this fresh proposal floating around from the folks at City hall, pushed by Mondami to slash the state estate tax exemption from over 7 million down to a measly 750,000. And while they're at it, they're going to crank the top rate from 16% all the way to 50. They say it's to plug a $5.4 billion budget deficit. How'd that deficit magically appear? Do you ever wonder about that? Well, it's years of wild spending on every pet project under the sun, that's how. But no, let's not cut the waste. Let's raid the estates of people who actually took the years to build something. 750,000, by the way, in New York City buys you like a shoebox apartment with sky high maintenance fees and a doorman who looks at you funny every time you walk in and out. So, so much for the only the rich. What this is, is straight up middle class wealth transfer dressed up as social justice. Of course. Families who scrimped and saved for a home or a small business PO Half of it is going to go to Albany when Mom and dad passes away. Critics are already sounding the alarm. Real estate's going to crater as people rush to sell before the government claims its pound of flesh. And then what? Migration straight to Tennessee, Florida, Texas. Places that don't treat your success like a crime. It's the same old story. Punish productivity, watch the productive pack up and go. Property values tank, revenue collapses. The city's in deeper crisis. Who could have predicted that driving away wealth creators might leave you broke? Well, the pattern's timeless, folks, because the wealthy aren't oak trees rooted in place. They're mobile. They're mobile capital. When taxes turn punitive, they relocate, they defer income, or they just stop creating as much wealth. Revenue drops, jobs vanish. And guess who pays you? Us, the middle class. Every single time. Politicians love yelling, text the rich. It polls great on the campaign trail, but the rich vote with their feet and their private jets. Newsome, Hochul, Pritzker, all the other blue state Marxists. They're not stupid. They know exactly what's happening. When the high earners flee their blue states, where do they land? They land in red states. And then what happens? Too many of them keep voting for the same big government nonsense that drove them out. It's like cancer cells migrating to healthy tissue and starting to spread. They turn purple states blue, one relocated voter at a time. Confiscatory taxes have never worked. They won't work now. Every time the left tries it, we get the same punchline. Shrinking tax base, plunging revenue, and for sale signs as far as the eye can see. So keep chanting, tax the rich, Kathy Hochul. Just don't be surprised when the rich say, see ya. And the rest of us, of course, are left holding the tab. And that's tonight's first word. Vinnie Mac, West Palm Beach. I'll give you first crack. Did you see Hochul at this thing the other day?
