Everyone wants the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes. By and large, that is how the U.S. and most state tax tables are designed to work. Despite this, “Tax the rich” remains the favorite slogan of progressive politicians from Albany to Sacramento. It sounds simple, moral, and painless — make the wealthy pay “their fair share” so everyone else can have more free services. Reality is less romantic. Two coastal experiments — one already underway in New York and one about

America’s states face chronic budget shortfalls from ballooning pensions, entitlements, infrastructure promises, and post-pandemic spending. Politicians’ go-to fix? Target the rich with new wealth taxes on net worth, steep “millionaire” income surtaxes, capital-gains levies, or revived intangible property taxes.

In a jaw-dropping display of big-government panic, New York Governor Kathy Hochul has sunk to openly begging the wealthy residents she once drove out of the state to please come back from Florida. Not because she suddenly cares about their success or the American Dream — but because she desperately needs their tax dollars to keep funding New York’s unsustainable “generous social programs.”