High Taxes Driving Wealth Out of Blue Cities

0:00 Speaker 1 What the heck is going on with us today? Is Jesse arm for the Manhattan Institute, and he’s the chief of staff. Well, Jesse, I mean, so many things are happening, so many people are worried about so many things. Give us an update. Where do you think we are?

0:17 Speaker 2 Thanks? John, It’s always good to be with you on a Sunday morning. I’m struck this week by all of these big blue city mayors who seem to be very excited about chasing out the doers, the job creators, the builders in the cities that are sort of the stars of America. We’ve got, obviously in our backyard Zahn Mamdani,

0:42 who’s instituting a tax regime that is going to make it a lot less enticing for businesses to create and grow here. But also out in Seattle on the West Coast, we have the socialist mayor there who just responded to an exodus of wealth in her state by laughing and saying by genuinely seeming excited about seeing this migration southward

1:08 or just out toward red states of the people who drive growth in blue America. And I’m concerned about it.

1:15 Speaker 1 Well, you know, I said that the other day jesse I said that the fact is, if we chase out the middle class out of New York and New York State, and we chase out businesses out of New York City, New York State, especially in New York City where right now JP Morgan, who just built a four billion dollar building,

1:38 has less employees in New York than they do in Texas. So if we chase them out, the people are gonna suffer at the end, are the employees of New York City, New York State. Because once S and P and Moody’s put you on the craft list, guess what, You’re not gonna have money to.

1:59 Speaker 2 Pay your pay Yeah, it’s sort of an old joke, right, the non common sense folks. What they really want is equality. But even if it means we’re all equally poor, and maybe that wasn’t such an old joke. It seems sort of dark to talk about. But it really is important that people recognize that taxing the rich and the rich

2:20 need to leave are contradictions and terms. They are statements with important implications about each other. And it feels increasingly like these folks who are pushing this line the sort of socialist class. It’s a drive that’s being more geared toward hatred for the rich than concern for the poor.

2:41 And I think that does extend to state tax, income tax disregard for public safety in these cities of which the poor is disproportionately affected and can’t kind of protect themselves from it or put themselves in a bubble where they don’t apply, you know, it doesn’t apply to them call an uber to get every where, or have a

3:00 driver take them from location to location. The big thing here, John look at also the mayor of New York right putting Ken Griffin on blast individually, targeting a guy who’s got a massive real estate project that’s going to be responsible for a lot of growth and a lot of jobs right in midtown that and the mayor makes them

3:20 out to be some sort of enemy for doing that. It’s disturbing. And after the billionaire class leaves, what’s going to happen? The bureaucrats are going to turn their sights on the savings of regular working class city dwellers in these places.

3:35 Speaker 1 Absolutely, so, what do we do well?

3:39 Speaker 2 I do think that one thing that really stands out to me, and this is sort of underemphasized in the debate we’re obviously having about jerry mandering or redistricting. The Red states are carving up their congressional districts in such a way that there are very few Democrats with representation.

3:57 The Blue states are responding in turn by carving up their states in such a way where there’s larry little Republican representation. And it’s sort of a ratcheting up of these tensions in both directions. And I realize that seems sort of disconnected, but I actually think it’s all of a piece because the socialists who encourage who increasingly are

4:18 governing these big blue cities, right they’re actively encouraging this out migration. And as you have the more prosperous American beginning to resettle in Red America, they’re bringing these jobs, they’re bringing investments, they’re bringing opportunity, and they’re fueling growth in places that welcome it and incentivizing others to come along and follow.

4:38 Speaker 1 So the big blue states are going to have a problem. It’s just a matter of time. And the problem is I just did a not bad piece that if you don’t have smart enough politicians in the Blue states, then they’re going to blow up. It’s just a matter of time.

4:58 Speaker 2 Yeah, so you see where I’m going with this. There’s obviously impending fiscal collapse in a lot of these places because they won’t have the tax base to do the big government things they want. But beyond that, their fighting is redistricting worth But by the time the twenty thirty or twenty forty census rolls around, when we give out

5:14 states their electoral college books and we essentially determine how important they are and how many represent representatives in Congress they get, all this chess something Democratic gerrymandering in the world isn’t going to do much good if it’s the red states that are continuing to boom with population while blue states are bleeding it not just population and voters,

5:35 but they’re also bleeding wealth.

5:37 Speaker 1 Understood well, Jesse Arm at Manhattan Institute. You guys are the think tank. You’re well respected, and the politicians should listen to you, and the state Senate, the Assembly, the City Council, and let’s keep talking. Let’s keep letting the American people in all New Yorkers know what’s going on.

6:01 Speaker 2 Appreciate it. John, great to be with you.