They’re Not Really After ‘the Rich’

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani claims that the city budget has a $5.4 billion shortfall, and one of the ways he proposes to close that gap is by changing the state’s estate tax laws.

At present, New York imposes a death tax of 16% on estates worth more than $7 million. Mamdani wants to lower that threshold to estates worth only $750,000, he’s proposing increasing the tax to 50%, and the tax would be imposed not only on the assets in excess of $750,000 but on the entirety of the estate.

That may sound like a lot of money to some, but to put things in perspective, the average price of a single-family home in Staten Island or Queens is more than $700,000. In Westchester County, it’s more than $800,000. In other words, a married couple who bought a home 30 or 40 years ago, paid off their mortgage, and saw the value of that asset appreciate over the years will not be able to leave that property to their children — or anyone else — when they die. It will have to be sold, and half the proceeds given to the government.

For most homeowners, their home is their single most valuable asset, and its appreciation in value is the greatest source of any increase in personal wealth. Mamdani’s estate tax proposal would absolutely gut that.

But it would not just be homes that are affected. The average value of a farm in New York state is around $700,000. A small gas station could be valued at anywhere from $300,000 to $600,000. A nail salon in New York City averages between $300,000 and $1 million.

Unsurprisingly, Mamdani’s proposal is drawing sharp criticism; Mamdani said he was going to go after “the rich”; someone whose primary asset is a modest single-family home, a family farm or a small business is hardly “rich.”

But no one should be surprised. Mamdani is a “democratic socialist,” which is just another name for a supporter of authoritarian collectivism and defender of demonstrably destructive economic policies.

The initial hook for socialism is typically some version of “we’re just going to get the rich to pay their fair share.” But that has always been nonsense.

First, “the rich” already pay the vast majority of taxes. The wealthiest 1% of Americans pay 40% of all income taxes. The wealthiest 10% pay 72% of all income taxes.

Second, there aren’t enough extremely wealthy people to pay for all the government programs that socialists want to create.

No, the group that socialists are really after is the middle class, particularly entrepreneurs and small business owners. They are the real targets, because they are the bulwark against communism and socialism in this country.

According to U.S. Census data, in 2023, there were more than 36 million firms in this country. More than 80% have no salaried employees, which the Census calls “non-employer firms.” Of the remaining 6 million firms that do have employees, the vast majority have fewer than 20. And yet those small businesses are responsible for more than 50% of the net new jobs created in this country every year.

If one uses the U.S. Small Business Administration’s definition of “small business” — any firm having 499 employees or fewer — they represent 99.9% of all businesses in America, generate 43.5% of U.S. gross domestic product and employ almost 46% of the U.S workforce.

America’s culture of entrepreneurial capitalism has created and distributed more wealth than any system of government in human history. Entrepreneurs come from every walk of life, every race and ethnicity, and every conceivable background. The successes of entrepreneurs here prove that anyone can make it in the United States. That inconvenient fact debunks communists’ and socialists’ pet theories that pit “class” against “class” and argue for the need for government takeover of the economy. That’s why “democratic socialists” like Mamdani put forth proposals that would cripple small business, and want to eliminate the assets — single-family homes — that so many aspiring entrepreneurs use to fund their startups.

Mamdani’s estate tax proposals are of a piece with his economic philosophies generally. One need only look at Cea Weaver, his director of the Office to Protect Tenants, who was caught on video declaring home ownership to be a tool of “white supremacy” (patently false and absurd — nearly 50% of Black households in the U.S. own their homes) and arguing that the government should “seize” private property to “impoverish the white middle class.” (Weaver, of course, is white, the child of wealthy parents, and a graduate of Bryn Mawr, a tony East Coast college that costs more than $90,000/year. Privilege for me but not for thee, suckers.)

Mamdani and his fellow travelers also profess to be concerned for the welfare of immigrants, but socialist policies are just as destructive for newcomers to America as they are for the native-born. Immigrants have played a huge role in American entrepreneurship; half the nation’s startups valued at a $1 billion or more were founded by immigrants. And every city is filled with convenience stores, bodegas, spas, restaurants and other modest-sized businesses launched by immigrants. The ability to come here, start a business and support your family was part of the American dream for many.

Not if Democrats and “democratic socialists” have their way.

As the fraud in deep-blue states like Minnesota, Washington and California proves, the Left’s “business model” for today’s immigrants is to import them by the millions, stick them on welfare and hand them billions in Americans’ taxpayer dollars for ventures that don’t really exist.

That’s not entrepreneurship; it’s grift. It’s not free-market capitalism; it’s wealth redistribution. And it creates not economic growth and financial independence but a culture of theft and dependence upon government.

Which is exactly the way the socialists like it.

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