It’s no secret that folks with half-a-brain are fleeing Democrat-controlled cities and states for greener pastures in conservative environments. Along with other wealthy enclaves in the Empire State, the Big Apple is fast losing a hefty tax base as the number of people leaving topped those who wanted to “wake up in the city that doesn’t sleep.”
Those vagabond shoes Ol’ Blue Eyes wore are heading in the opposite direction.
United Van Lines publishes a survey every year to keep tabs on movers, and a recent state-to-state migration pattern showed a dramatic trend. It found last year that 61.5% of New York's movers – a whopping 450,000 people -- left the state, in comparison to 38.5% who moved into the state.
But the most important discovery is that only well-heeled people were scramming and only the wealthy – albeit much smaller percentage – were moving in.
In New York City, the taxation of the wealthy under the leadership of Mayor Bill de Blasio is frankly punitive. The city relies exclusively on the top 10% of earners to provide more than 70% of all taxes. Granted, there are a handful of uber rich liberals applauding these efforts but when bank accounts are seemingly unlimited who would care that one-percenters in the boroughs are tossing more shekels into the government coffers than the bottom 90% combined.
The exodus portends an approaching financial disaster not seen since the 1970s and ‘80s when the Democrats held the reins for decades, driving the once-vibrant city into a drug-frenzied, crime-ridden war zone.
Econ 101
A saying about generational wealth floats to the surface from time to time: The first generation makes it, the second generation spends it, and the third generation blows it. The surplus from two decades of governance under former mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg is now being swiftly misspent on increasingly radical policies.
Recently, the New York City Council pushed through a $93 billion budget that would send economists worth their salt to the nearest tavern to drink themselves into a stupor.
Line items include a 6% raise for city bureaucrats, 9% for city employee benefits, 11% boost to free health care, and a 12% pad to public assistance programs. And there is so much more: The council also carved out a chunk of taxpayer dollars to fund abortions, a plethora of additional social workers to give away free stuff, and the Green New Deal. Squander much?
It’s a damn shame those 25,000 high-paying jobs Amazon wanted to bring to the city were quashed summarily by radical socialist progressives. Who in Gotham City is going to pay for the looming disaster?
Not the wealthy folks who had had enough and took the exit ramp to now hang out on the veranda of their Houston mansion sipping champagne. Next, many in the middle class will save enough hard-earned dough to leave behind the retributory and wasteful government regime and seek more welcoming and encouraging habitats. All that will remain then are the very people those social programs are supposed to help as the idealism of De Blasio’s socialistic utopia vanishes -- to be replaced by 50 shades of Venezuela.
And far-left Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo admitted to a $2.3 billion crater in his budget – although he refuses to cop to the fact that it was his own fault, caused by pushing through his propaganda-driven agenda.
History Repeats
The state of New York and its most recognized municipality have made it clear that wealth and high earners are the enemies of the people to be vilified and then financially punished. But payback is a bitch, as those who have the means are relocating to keep a bit more of their assets and leaving the responsibility of future tax revenue to those who have a hard time paying them in the first place.
Apparently New York has not learned from past transgressions and egregious fiscal mismanagement. In 1975, facing certain bankruptcy, Gov. Hugh Carey (D) and newly elected New York City Mayor Abraham Beame (D) beseeched then conservative President Gerald Ford for a bailout to keep investors and Wall Street comfortable. Ford delivered a hard-hitting, bare-knuckle knock-out speech on national television in response. To sum up the message, the front page of The Daily News the next day read: “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD.”
Can you imagine the response if such a need should arise while President Trump is in the Oval Office?
As history repeats itself in the slow and painful demise of what was once the most vibrant city and wealthy state in the country, people with means and brains are searching for a new place to be “king of the hill, top of the heap.”
The only folks that will be left and marked safe will be the grasping bureaucrats.
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