If there’s one political slogan that’s risen to the level of obsession with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Democratic state lawmakers and other New York progressives, it’s “tax the rich.”
But unlike, say, “freeze the rent” — which at least describes a demand that hasn’t yet been achieved — “tax the rich” is also slyly deceptive.
It implies, falsely, that New York isn’t already squeezing top earners harder than everyone else.
In fact, raising taxes on income millionaires has been Albany’s primary revenue-raising strategy since the end of the 2007-’09 Great Recession.
As a result, New Yorkers with incomes over $1 million are now subject to the highest statutory tax rates since the early 1980s.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the New York Post. Based off a recent Issue Brief.
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E.J. McMahon is a senior fellow at the Empire Center for Public Policy and a Manhattan Institute adjunct fellow. Follow him on Twitter here.
Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
