Mamdani's latest tax pledge 'makes no sense' and will only exacerbate Florida 'exodus': former mayor

The former Republican mayor of Boca Raton is speaking out against the economic and tax policies of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and warning that reports of business owners and job creators fleeing to red states like Florida are likely to continue.

"I didn't have to be a soothsayer to know that when you elect a Democrat socialist with far left ideas that are just intent on taxing, taxing, taxing and have plans that have no hope of passing, you're going to cause more capital to flee," Scott Singer, running for Congress as a Republican in Florida's 25th District, told Fox News.

Mamdani has faced heavy criticism over his "tax the rich" platform since taking office, including from Citadel CEO and billionaire Ken Griffin, who recently pledged to increase his investment in Florida in response to new taxes on the wealthy imposed by the new socialist mayor.

Singer, who predicted a business exodus from New York City to Florida in an interview with Fox News Digital in October, says the "exodus is going to continue naturally."

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"People have already gotten wise and crazy statements like taxing people just because we can, and putting surtaxes on what are already the highest tax rates in the country, and thinking people aren't going to move is a bad idea," Singer said. "It's not going to work, and people are going to continue to move."

Mamdani recently celebrated a proposal to tax luxury second homes owned by the ultra-wealthy, a plan expected to generate at least $500 million annually. 

"It makes no sense from a policy standpoint," Singer said. "A part-time resident in New York City who's already paying tons of property taxes at a rate that Mamdani wanted to increase, what, 11% more? They're not using any services. So why would people continue to invest there? All they're going to do is drive more capital away, depress values, and create fewer job opportunities."

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The right path forward, according to Singer, is "creating job growth, lowering taxes, shrinking government and allowing the free market to continue to attract jobs to attractive places."

Fox News Digital reached out to Mamdani’s office for comment. 

Mamdani claimed last month that threats of the city's wealthiest residents leaving the city over high taxes are "imagined."  

"For all of the discussion of the imagined exodus that would take place were we to tax the wealthiest New Yorkers by the appropriate amount — I say imagined because before I was a mayor I was a state legislator, and I was part of an effort to increase taxes on millionaires at that time — we were told the same thing then — and what we find now is that we have more millionaires today than we did at that time even after having passed that tax," Mamdani said.

New York City’s population declined in 2025, the year before Mamdani took office, resulting in a net loss of about 12,000 people. The drop follows post-pandemic gains of 70,000 in 2023 and 163,000 in 2024, driven largely by increased immigration, including asylum seekers, according to an April 20 report from the Citizens Budget Commission. 

Fox News Digital’s Sophia Compton contributed to this report