Queens homeowners flooded the streets this week to protest their new socialist mayor's plan to slam them with a nearly 10 percent property tax hike – and the guy running it all has been in office less than two months.
Ron DeSantis has been watching – and he just put New York's entire fiscal disaster into one brutal comparison.
What he said makes the case so simply that even New York Democrats can't argue with the math – and some of them aren't even trying.
A City of 8 Million Spending More Than a State of 23 Million
New York City's new preliminary budget for fiscal year 2027 clocks in at $127 billion.
Florida's entire state budget – covering 23 million people, two major metro areas, the world's most visited tourist destination, and thousands of miles of coastline – is $117 billion.
"New York City with 8 million people has a larger budget than the entire state of Florida and yet our infrastructure is better, our roads are better, services are better," DeSantis said Sunday.
He didn't stop there.
"These are CHOICES," DeSantis said. "They don't respect the taxpayers in these places and people have rebelled now."
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/2024621929395867712?s=20
The Exodus That Already Proved DeSantis Right
Here's what makes this more than just a good talking point – the people living under both systems have already voted with their feet.
From 2020 to 2021 alone, New York lost a net 261,785 residents to other states, according to IRS migration data.
More than 58,000 of them landed in Florida.
The average income of New Yorkers leaving the state hit an all-time high of $130,054 – meaning it wasn't struggling families packing their bags, it was earners with options making a deliberate choice.
Heritage Foundation data puts New York's combined tax bite at 14 percent of personal income – the heaviest load in the country – while Albany has racked up more state and local debt per capita than any other state.
Meanwhile, Florida has been adding 467,000 new residents per year and now tops 23 million people – nearly 4 million more than New York.
Real estate experts at Douglas Elliman told Fox Business this week that Mamdani's 9.5 percent property tax hike proposal is already moving buyers toward Nassau, Westchester, and Florida.
"Even the discussion of a 9.5% hike is enough to influence buyer behavior," Douglas Elliman's Ben Jacobs said.
And for good reason: under Mamdani's plan, a Park Slope single-family home assessed at $44,000 goes from an $8,700 annual tax bill to roughly $9,500 – and remember, this is the option he says he doesn't want to use.
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/2024860201476899231?s=20
Why Taxing the Rich Always Ends the Same Way
Mamdani's preferred play is to squeeze corporations and anyone making over a million dollars a year.
He's framing it as protecting the working class.
But New York tried this – and it already has the highest top-tier income tax rate in the nation at 14.776 percent combined city and state.
Carl Icahn, one of the most prominent billionaires to leave, relocated to Florida – joining a migration pattern Heritage Foundation researchers documented in hard numbers: high earners flee high-tax states at roughly a 3-to-2 ratio over those moving in, draining the tax base faster than any rate hike can replenish it.
When the wealthy leave, the middle class gets handed the bill.
DeSantis knows this cycle is cold.
Florida has no state income tax – a policy he pledged Sunday to protect – and exempts food, medication, and baby items from sales tax entirely.
"And so if somebody is struggling trying to make ends meet, we've done a lot to reduce the burdens on them," DeSantis said. "We've stood for people that are working hard."
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/2024621929395867712?s=20
New York's response to budget shortfalls is always the same: raise taxes, watch the rich leave, discover the middle class was funding more than they realized, raise taxes again.
Even New York Governor Kathy Hochul – a Democrat – told Mamdani to go back to the drawing board on the property tax hike.
City Comptroller Mark Levine, a fellow Democrat, called the proposal a "pretty extreme option."
Mamdani's own party is flinching – and he hasn't even done it yet.
DeSantis built a state that 23 million people chose to live in by making a different decision at every fork in the road: cut rather than spend, exempt rather than tax, attract rather than squeeze.
The proof, as he put it Sunday, is in the pudding.
Sources:
- Ron DeSantis, remarks on Florida fiscal policy, February 22, 2026.
- NYC Mayor's Office, "Mayor Mamdani Releases Balanced Fiscal Year 2027 Preliminary Budget," NYC.gov, February 17, 2026.
- Governor Ron DeSantis, "Governor Ron DeSantis Signs Florida Fiscal Year 2025-2026 Budget," FlGov.com, 2025.
- Stephen Moore, "Plague of Taxes Sparks New York Exodus," The Heritage Foundation.
- Stephen Moore, "If You Tax Them, They Will Run," The Heritage Foundation.
- Fox Business, "NYC real estate pros warn against Mayor Mamdani's 9.5% property tax hike ultimatum," Fox Business, February 2026.
- Fox Business, "Mamdani proposes raising NYC property taxes if state doesn't approve tax hike on wealthy," Fox Business, February 18, 2026.
- Empire Center for Public Policy, "NY taxpayer outflow hit a new net high of 261,785 in 2020-21," July 2023.
