New York’s Envy Tax

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed pied‑à‑terre tax is being sold as fiscal responsibility, but its real currency is envy. The measure would impose a new annual surcharge on roughly 13,000 luxury second homes in New York City, beginning at properties valued at $5 million and escalating to $15 million and $25 million. New York’s leaders must know that taxing a small class of part‑time residents will not rescue a city drowning in budget shortfalls. But what it will do and what it is designed to do is satisfy a political appetite for punishing the wealthy. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: A Quite Cranky 5QT)

Recent survey data from the Pew Research Center underscores how deeply moralized attitudes toward wealth have become. According to the survey, which polled a random sample of Americans — and then analyzed the data by political affiliation — found that nearly one‑third of Democrats now say that “being extremely wealthy” is not just undesirable but immoral. That finding reveals a profound shift: wealth itself is no longer viewed as an achievement or even a neutral fact of life, but as a kind of moral stain for progressive Democrats. But the Pew data reveal that even 7 percent of Republicans now believe that “being extremely rich” is immoral.

In such a climate, policies like the pied‑à‑terre tax function less as fiscal tools and more as a sign of resentment and revenge. Such policy proposals allow political leaders to signal their solidarity with voters who increasingly see affluence as evidence of exploitation. The tax becomes a way of punishing a class whose very existence is perceived as offensive. The tax is a textbook example of how envy, once considered a private vice, is now being elevated into a public virtue. It is a ritualized shaming of those who can afford what others desire. New York City’s Mayor Mamdani appears to enjoy the public shaming of the City’s wealthiest individuals.

Earlier this week, Mamdani starred in a video that was filmed outside 220 Central Park South, the building where Citadel CEO Ken Griffin owns a four-floor penthouse he purchased in 2019 for $238 million, then the highest price ever paid for a home in the United States. In the video, Mamdani taunted Mr. Griffin and all billionaires by saying that: “When I ran for mayor, I said I was going to tax the rich,” Mamdani said in the one-minute clip. “Well, today we’re taxing the rich.”

Using envy as a budgeting strategy, Governor Hochul and Mayor Mamdani provide a perfect illustration of mimetic theory, which holds that envy thrives in moments of perceived scarcity and vulnerability. When a community feels anxious, it seeks a target — a scapegoat — whose very existence seems to mock its insecurity. The pied‑à‑terre owner becomes that scapegoat: the rival whose success must be symbolically cut down so the rest of us can feel momentarily vindicated. Hochul’s tax is not a policy solution; it is a sacrificial gesture. A way of channeling collective resentment toward the rich while avoiding the harder work of governing.

But envy‑driven taxation is not housing policy, and it certainly is not a strategy for affordability. A genuine housing agenda would focus on increasing supply, reforming zoning, accelerating permitting, and encouraging private investment — the very mechanisms that actually lower costs and expand access. Instead, New York’s leaders reach for punitive symbolism, targeting a tiny group of second‑home owners while ignoring the structural barriers that make housing scarce in the first place. A surcharge on 13,000 luxury New York City apartments will not build a single new unit of affordable housing, but it will allow politicians to claim they are “doing something” while avoiding the politically difficult reforms that real solutions require. Envy offers emotional satisfaction; housing policy demands competence.

As I argued in my Politics of Envy, modern political movements increasingly rely on resentment as a governing principle. Policies like the pied‑à‑terre tax are crafted not to solve problems but to inflame passions — encouraging citizens to measure justice by how much discomfort can be inflicted on someone else. When leaders reward envy, they normalize a politics of punishment rather than a politics of possibility. (RELATED: The Politics of Envy Always Ends With the Guillotine)

It is worth restating a basic but often ignored fact about who funds the federal government. According to IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) data (Table 4.1), the top 1 percent of earners pay roughly 40 percent of all federal income taxes. The top 10 percent pay about 72 percent. By contrast, the bottom 50 percent of earners contribute approximately 3 percent of federal income‑tax revenue.

These numbers do not settle every debate about fairness or economic policy, but they do clarify the structure of the tax base: a small share of high‑income households provides the majority of federal income‑tax revenue. Any serious conversation about public spending, fiscal sustainability, or tax reform has to begin with an accurate understanding of who is actually paying for the system we all rely on. These are the high earners that we need to keep the city lights on. We should be grateful to them.

New York does not have a revenue problem; it has a leadership problem. A city that once prided itself on ambition now indulges in the small‑minded thrill of bullying billionaires. Envy may be a potent political fuel, but it is a disastrous governing philosophy. A city that punishes aspiration will soon find it has nothing left to tax. And when resentment becomes the organizing principle of public life, decline follows quickly: investment dries up, talent leaves, and the only thing that grows is the list of people to blame. New York cannot afford leaders who confuse spite with strategy. It needs the courage to build, not the impulse to destroy.

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