Democrats have a script for this. Something goes wrong on their watch, and somehow it's never their fault. It's always Trump. It's always Republicans. It's anything but their own foolish policies. Democrats blame Trump and Republicans for the failures of cities that Democrats have run for decades. They are so committed to their ideology that they can’t acknowledge when their ideas fail.
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) appeared Thursday morning on Good Day New York, where the host walked in armed with numbers straight out of the newest Citizens Budget Commission report.
The Citizens Budget Commission found that New York's share of America's millionaires has dropped sharply since 2010, and that decline has created a nearly $11 billion shortfall in revenue from high earners, a hole bigger than the $8 billion bailout Hochul already built into her budget. New York leans hard on a small pool of wealthy taxpayers, and losing even a few hundred of those households can cost the state billions.
"Their latest report basically said wealthy individuals are moving out, families are moving out, and single filers are coming in. People who really can't afford New York City are coming here. You had to bail out New York City $8 billion this budget. They're saying they see a $10 billion budget deficit. What do you think? How do we stop this?" the host asked.
Hochul's first move was to question the data itself. "Well, first of all, the data that came out is from 2022," she said.
The host wasn't having it and pressed again on whether things had gotten better since, pointing right back at that $8 billion bailout.
So Hochul reached for the oldest trick in the Democrat Party playbook: Blame Trump. She pinned the exodus on the 2017 federal cap on the state and local tax deduction, insisting it made living in New York more expensive and pushed people out the door.
"All of a sudden, everybody in New York paid higher taxes because we used to, since Abraham Lincoln was president — they started the tax code — you never were double taxed. They changed that, so states like New York, you lost that deduction. So it got more expensive to be here just with the signing of that law, 2017, 2019," Hochul said.
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Then, having exhausted her Trump material, Hochul pivoted to the pandemic. "Those were the years when people started the outmigration of businesses and individuals. And then what happens in 2020? [New York] gets slammed with the pandemic. So people who maybe had a vacation home or a temporary home in Palm Beach said, 'I'm moving my whole family here,'" she said.
Kathy Hochul is grilled by NYC media on report of businesses and wealthy individuals fleeing the city.
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) July 15, 2026
Hochul counters that the data is from 2022. The host wants to know if it's really any better now.
Hochul doesn't answer, then pivots to blaming Trump and Covid.
Host finally… pic.twitter.com/aIBrkWngiX
Notice what's missing from all of that? There's not one word about New York's own tax rates. Not one word about its spending. Not one word about the decisions Albany controls. Trump and COVID ate up nearly her entire answer, while her own policies never came up once.
The host finally posed the question Hochul had spent the whole segment avoiding: "You don't think that's a problem now?"
The governor's answer was a masterpiece of saying nothing. "But I'm here. I am today. I am doing what I can to stop that," she said. No plan. No specific action. No word on whether the wealthy exodus slowed down after 2022. No mention of Florida or Texas, the two states that have been happily scooping up New York's former taxpayers for years.
Here's the problem for Hochul: Congress didn't write New York's tax code. Congress doesn't set its spending or its budget. Those calls belong to Albany, and Albany's answer has been more spending, higher taxes on top earners, and new ways to squeeze a shrinking pool of wealthy residents. Hochul can blame Washington all she wants. The people leaving know exactly who's driving them out.
This isn't just a New York problem. It's a preview of what happens anywhere Democrats run the government long enough to own the consequences and still refuse to. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) has blamed Trump for California’s gas prices and wildfire mismanagement, despite state taxes and poor local management being the real culprits. In Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker blames Trump, not decades of bad state policy, for the state’s financial problems.
A party that never has to answer for its own failures never has to fix them, either. That's the real cost here. This is far bigger than just avoiding responsibility; it's a governing style built on the assumption that someone else will always take the blame, which means the failures never stop, because nothing ever forces them to… unless the voters do something about it.
