Tag: middle class

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too much government

Escape from New York

New York City, Zohran Mamdani, socialism, business, middle class

People in New York City with any money and property are unhappy about the prospect of a communist mayor. They apparently see the potential of the government taking much more of their money less a politician’s promise and more a revolutionary threat.

While Zohran Mamdani might lose, it’s not looking that way. (Note the standing of his chief competitor.) Therefore, many homeowners are fleeing, without waiting for Election Day.

One destination is next-​door Connecticut, site of a failed revolt in 1991 against the enactment of a state income tax. New Yorkers reasonably suppose that the taxes imposed by a Mayor Mamdani would prove worse than that — and worse than New Yorkers’ already-​heavy tax burden.

Escapees are also worried about crime.

Mamdani could do much unilaterally but would need the cooperation of the state legislature and governor or the city council to impose the tax hikes he’s dreaming about. Still, these entities hardly serve as bulwarks of limited government.

We know that New Yorkers are lurching to Connecticut because, as the New York Post reports, a “bidding war frenzy and soaring prices” have hit the state’s housing market.

According to real-​estate agents there, the frenzy resembles that of early pandemic times. Properties are being scooped up within days. Deals are cash on the barrelhead, even for multi-​million-​dollar homes. Sale prices are much higher than expected.

And the bidders are coming “out of New York City,” the agents say. Prospective buyers have been “mentioning concerns about the mayoral election.…”

Good news, for a while, for Connecticut home sellers and their real-​estate agents. Bad news for everybody else, soon enough.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Illustration created with Krea and Fireflly

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Unfuzzying Up the Past

We hear a lot of talk about the disappearing middle class. Sometimes this jabber goes so far as to posit that normal folks — say, the “99 percent” — haven’t really experienced any progress since the ’60 or ’70s.

So blame the rich. And their government.

It’s not an implausible case. Wealthy interests do rent politicians at extravagant rates, changing policy in their favor.

But as economist Russ Roberts and Cornell University’s Richard Burkhauser discussed recently, sloppy statistics feed the hand-​wringing over middle-​class decline. Considering government transfer payments from rich to poor and plotting income by household rather than individually, the basic “stagnation” thesis doesn’t pass the “smell test.”

For the real stink, however, consult the Internet memes, particularly this goofy contention:

In the 1950s and 1960s when the top tax rate was 70 – 92%, we laid the interstate system, built the Internet, put a man on the moon, defeated Communism, our education system was the envy of the world, our middle class thriving, our economy unparalleled. You want that back? Raise taxes on the rich.

Forget the obvious nonsense (ARPANET was the Internet only in ovo; Communism collapsed in the ’80s), and concentrate on the main points, as Tom Woods has done: tax evasion was rampant back in the alleged “good ol’ days”; public schools have doubled in per capita spending since then, and not improved; and the stagflationary ’70s followed the booming ’60s, almost certainly as a consequence of the policies being touted, here.

Selective memories help in constructing just-​so policy “proofs.” The middle class has received some big hits, I grant you. Still, we’ve seen progress, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.