Socialism Stinks… and Here’s Why

“Socialism of any type leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Recently, two Democrat officeholders who have promoted and enacted socialist policies addressed the philosophy behind them... and their unfortunate results. One of them, New York Gov. Kathy Holchul, has apparently had a slight change of heart whereas New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani doubled down on his socialist positions and rhetoric.

Let’s look at Madame Governor first.

During her 2022 campaign, Hochul infamously said the following about her Republican opponent Lee Zeldin, then-Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, and President Donald Trump…

“Trump and Zeldin and Molinaro – just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong. OK? Get out of town. Because you don’t represent our values... You're not New Yorkers.”

(Her caustic words remind me of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s infamous 2014 radio interview in which he said on-air – and then tried to retract the next day – “Right to life, pro-assault weapons, anti-gay — if that’s who they are, they have no place in the state of New York because that’s not who New Yorkers are.”)

And so, President Trump took Gov. Hochul’s advice and headed south to Mar-a-Lago, his plush resort in Palm Beach, and eventually to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Other millionaires and billionaires followed suit, many of them taking their companies – and high-paying corporate jobs – with them.

Now, the cash-strapped Hochul is singing a much different tune.

During remarks at Politico's "New York Agenda: Albany Summit" event earlier this year, Hochul explained that she needs individuals with a "high net worth to support the generous social programs that we wanna have in our state."

She even suggested that wealthy individuals should visit Palm Beach, Florida, to "see who you can bring back home, because our tax base has been eroded."

Hochul also lamented the fact that “Wall Street businesses are looking at Texas” because of its lower tax rates, claiming that New York is “in competition with other states who have less of a tax burden on their corporations and their individuals.”

Geez, do you think?

Billionaire businessman John Catsimatidis responded to Hochul’s pitiful plea by dismissing the idea that former New York State residents would return.

“This is a joke, nobody who has gone down to Florida is coming back,” the 2013 New York City mayoral candidate said.

Meanwhile, Mayor Mamdani still hasn’t learned his lesson.

On April 28, Mamdani, speaking at a joint press conference with Council Speaker Julie Menin, declared a "budget crisis of a historic magnitude" larger than any “since the Great Recession,” blaming inherited mismanagement and a structural imbalance with the state.

"We cannot close this deficit with savings alone. We need new revenue. And we need a structural reset in our relationship with the state. … That is the only way to meet our legal obligation to pass a balanced budget and to do so without imposing a financial burden onto the backs of working people,” he stated.

Did you catch that seemingly innocuous phrase buried in the middle of his announcement? We… need… new… revenue. In other words, NYC’s Socialist-in-Chief intends to raise taxes yet again on the city’s businesses and most affluent residents – which, if the past is indeed prologue, will send even more of them packing to Florida, Texas, Tennessee and the Carolinas.

Mamdani’s ideological stubbornness – and inability to grasp simple economics – reminds me of the Christian high school that our two sons attended. When enrollment started to decline due to soaring tuition, guess what they did? That’s right; they raised the tuition even higher for the remaining students to make up for the ones who had left. Of course, that myopic approach resulted in more cash-strapped families pulling their kids out of the school… which led the school to raise tuition costs even higher… and so, the death spiral continued until the school inevitably closed.

My former home state of New Jersey could learn a lesson or two from that school’s shortsightedness, because people are fleeing the Garden State in record numbers for several reasons: liberal politics, congestion, cold weather, and most of all, the crushing tax burden… led by the highest property taxes in the country, twice the national average.

But what do the brain-dead politicians in Trenton do? Raise taxes even higher to make up for the lost revenue which, in turn, drives out more residents.

They made a movie about Hochul and Mamdani in 1994, starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. It was called Dumb and Dumber.

Yes, there was a 2014 sequel with the same two actors, but the 2026 version featuring Socialist darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan “World War Eleven” Omar is sure to be an even bigger box office hit. For the record, AOC recently claimed that the American Revolution was fought “against the billionaires of their time.”

Not against King George III, not because of taxation without representation, and not for independence… at least not according to that great academician, historian, and scholar known as AOC.

Fortunately, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) set her straight on X…

“No, AOC, the American Revolution was NOT ‘against the billionaires of their time.’ It was against a large, distant, overly intrusive government that recognized no limits over its own authority to tax, regulate, and eat out the substance of the citizens it claimed to serve.”

Let me close with a quote from Garry Kasparov, the Russian chess grandmaster who was the undisputed world champion from 1984 to 1993 and the classical world champion from 1993 to 2000.

“It’s always worth noting how people who never lived under socialism adore it while everyone who lived under it hates it.”

Editor’s Note: Lest we only cite East Coast examples, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, a progressive Democrat, recently announced that she was imposing a 10% tax on millionaires in the city. Sounding more like a “Valley Girl” than the chief executive of Washington State’s largest city with a population of 780,000 people, Mayor Wilson said, “I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are, like, super overblown. And if, you know, the ones that leave, like, ‘Bye,’”

Unaware that higher taxes will cause the wealthy to leave, Mayor Wilson launched a boycott of Starbucks, resulting in the company relocating its corporate headquarters - and 3,000 jobs - to Nashville, Tennessee and former CEO Howard Schultz (and his $3.6 billion net worth) moving to Miami. Meanwhile, Starbucks announced plans to close five Seattle stores and also laid off 61 high-paid tech workers in their Seattle offices after cutting 900 positions in 2025.

Of course, those moves pale in comparison to the economic (i.e. tax) hit that Seattle took in 2023 when Amazon founder Jeff Bezos packed up his $272 billion fortune and headed to South Beach. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly planning to join Schultz and Bezos at what is being called “Billionaires Bunker” in Miami if California goes through with its proposed one-time 5% tax on billionaires.