Zohran Mamdani Ate The Rich :(
Don't worry, they were murdered but they got better.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul struck terror into the hearts of the ultrawealthy (and the real-estate investment infrastructure that feeds off them) Wednesday, with a joint Tax Day announcement that Mamdani is now making good on his promise to tax the rich in his city, to help make life more affordable for ordinary New Yorkers.
Standing across the street from the palatial $238 million penthouse owned by hedge fund billionaire Kenneth Griffin, Mamdani announced that New York City will soon add a “pied-à-terre” tax on properties worth $5 million or more that are not anyone’s primary residence, on top of the regular property tax. Mamdani and Hochul estimate that the new tax will bring in around $500 million a year to help pay for universal child care and other cost-of-living help for people in the city.
It’s not quite the “millionaire tax” that Mamdani ran on (and which Hochul currently opposes), but it’s a small step giant leap for mankind in that direction.
Here, enjoy the mayor’s video.
That image of Mamdani leaning down to tap the camera lens also went viral on its own, and was retwote by rightwingers who took the bait and said lookit the scary socialist! Former Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino replied to Mamdani’s video (Business Insider link) by calling it “actually one of the scariest things I have seen. it won’t stop here,” and was roundly mocked for that, including by menswear guy Derek Guy, who generously offered (actual Twitlink, sorry), “Linda, let me help you hide your properties. Sign one of them over to me.”
Mamdani, however, points out that the proposal to tax luxury second homes in the city has the support of 93 percent of New Yorkers, who turn out not to be members of the plutocrat class, or those who enable them.
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So how is this thing going to work? The exact details are still in the works, to be finalized as part of the state budget that will be enacted later this year. But the basics are that it would be assessed on people who own a second home worth $5 million or more in New York City if it isn’t their primary residence. That would include people who live outside the state; it seems also to apply to people who own two homes/apartments in the city unless one is rented out to a tenant.
The exact rate hasn’t been determined, but it may be on a sliding scale so that someone whose second home is merely worth $5 million — basically a slum by Trumpian standards — would pay a lower rate than someone with a colossal $100 million penthouse.
Will No One Think Of The Filthy Rich For Once?
Not surprisingly, the rich and those who cater to them are simply appalled. Donald Trump whined that Mamdani was “DESTROYING New York,” which he considers his job, and Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Florida), the placeholder whom Ron DeSantis appointed to fill Marco Rubio’s former seat, tweeted the still image (Business Insider again) with the comment “last thing you see before you move to Florida.” Ted Cruz, the very likable fellow everyone identifies with as a kind of populist Everyman, warned that the announcement meant “Texas & Florida realtors’ phones are ringing.”
Rich Texas podcaster and investment advice fuck Jason Calacanis complained from Austin that “NYC is cooked” and even griped that the plan was “class warfare,” because since Reagan, the investment class has been accustomed to making all the rules. Business Insider notes that “Calacanis, who moved from San Francisco to Austin in 2024, also said he'd be ‘tempted to come back and fix this mess,’ floating the idea of a potential mayoral run.” Yaccarino chimed in to say she’d be “happy to help,” in the way that the filthy rich so often band together to put on a show in the old barn to save their tax advantages.
Of course, the same old line gets used whenever a tax on the super-wealthy goes into effect: You can’t tax the rich, because they’ll just move away to somewhere with lower taxes. Except … by definition those people already don’t live there. It is a tax on people who state that they are resident elsewhere, and so are not paying New York City taxes. If they’d like to take residence in New York City, poof: No more pied-à-terre tax!
And their larger so-called point is stupid anyway: Since Massachusetts instituted a 4 percent “millionaire tax” in 2023, the number of millionaires in the state actually increased, and the number of ultra-wealthy folks those with $50 million or more — “grew by 35%, from 1,954 to 2,642,” according to a 2025 study from the Institute for Policy Studies.
Previous attempts at a pied-à-terre tax have gone nowhere, mostly due to intense lobbying and rabble-rousing by New York’s powerful real estate industry. The most recent attempt, in 2019, was actually touched off by widespread disgust at Griffin’s $328 million penthouse, which at the time was the most expensive single “home” purchase in the city’s history. But that has changed a lot, in part because New Yorkers vividly remember how all the rich fucks departed the city for their vacation homes in the Hamptons during the pandemic.
But now, things have shifted to the point where Hochul called the proposal a “common sense plan” for raising revenue and encouraging fairness. Hochul’s willingness to get on board with the second-home tax is encouraging, although she still could use some persuading to support a more aggressive, Massachusetts-style millionaires tax, which is Mamdani’s larger goal.
If rich fucks are scared by all this, all we can say is, about time.
And with that it’s your Nice Time OPEN THREAD Not Open Thread Yet because Rebecca forgot it’s Friday and Hooper is still skedded for The Time.
[NYC Mayor / Business Insider / Fast Company / WBUR / Gothamist]
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Updated with a note that this isn't the open thread after all, nobody can remember what day it is or where they are, or even that things have names, and in order to indicate them it is necessary to point.
BRB, Dad's taking me into the jungle to discover ice.
My god he is so, so good at this.
Dear Democrats: This is what you need to be. Not some race-to-the-center Republican Lite.