Mamdani made Ken Griffin a target — and cemented NYC’s death spiral

Mayor Zohran Mamdani filmed a video celebrating Gov. Kathy Hochul's "pied-à-terre" tax proposal outside of hedge fund manager Ken Griffin's apartment building. @NYCMayor /X

Last week New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani stood outside Ken Griffin’s apartment building and grinned, “Today we’re taxing the rich.”

He said it like he was declaring victory.

It was actually a eulogy for one of the greatest cities in the world.

I know what happens when you get tax policy right, because I watched it happen when I was governor of Florida.

For years, my state has taken advantage of the way New York drove its residents and its most productive businesses straight to our door.

They brought their income, their companies, their employees, their charitable contributions and their tax dollars with them.

Florida won; New York lost — and Mamdani has decided to double down on failure.

“Tax the rich” (or as de facto Democratic Party spokesperson Hasan Piker would probably put it, “kill the rich”) has become the rallying cry for a party that either doesn’t understand the competitive landscape between states, or doesn’t understand basic math.

For them, here’s a lesson in how the socialism death spiral works.

You tax the wealthy and job creators at punishing rates.

They flee — and the tax base shrinks.

You’re left with a budget hole.

Democrats decide the answer is to tax whoever remains even more.

More people leave; the hole gets bigger.

Repeat until your city or state is broke and completely unrecognizable, while denying that you created the problem.

Any observer can see this is happening to New York — except its rulers.

The Empire State has no clothes.

This month, Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul announced New York’s first-ever pied-à-terre tax, an annual surcharge on properties valued above $5 million when the owner’s primary residence is outside New York City.

They claim it will generate $500 million a year, but they won’t tell you what comes next.

The moment those owners decide a $5 million property in a city that resents them isn’t worth the annual bill, they sell.

The revenue disappears, and property values overall soften.

That’s not a budget fix; it’s a spiteful political campaign targeting the very people who keep the city’s finances afloat.

Which brings me back to Ken Griffin, who not coincidentally moved himself and his company’s headquarters from Chicago to South Florida in 2022.

His Citadel hedge fund and Citadel Securities still employ thousands of people in New York City, generating good-paying jobs, local spending and a tax contribution that dwarfs almost any other single resident.

Griffin’s lifetime charitable giving exceeds $2 billion.

He recently committed $400 million to New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

He’s personally committed $10 million to help Citadel employees serve on nonprofit boards supporting health, anti-poverty and education organizations across the city, like Harlem Lacrosse and the New York Piano Society.

So what does Mamdani do?

He makes Griffin a political target.

He stands outside Griffin’s home to name-and-shame him in a slick social-media video.

The city’s own mayor villainizes a man who employs thousands, pays an enormous local tax bill and has donated billions to causes benefiting New Yorkers.

This isn’t governance — it’s class warfare dressed up as policy.

And now, Griffin is threatening to abandon New York City altogether.

There’s a different way.

When I became governor of Florida, my administration cut taxes by more than $10 billion, reformed permitting, eliminated more than 5,000 needless regulations and recruited businesses aggressively.

The best anti-poverty program any government can support is a job, and Florida built 1.7 million of them by getting government out of the way.

I grew up in public housing, so I feel genuine sympathy for the working-class New Yorkers who can’t pick up and move out.

They will bear the heaviest burden of this socialist vision that’s taking over New York, losing wages and opportunities while the politicians who caused the damage pat themselves on the back.

To be clear, good economies don’t last forever — something leaders in Florida and other red-state beneficiaries of New York’s decline should keep keenly in mind.

It takes constant, daily work to keep growing jobs and improving people’s lives.

It’s not just a tax cut here or there, it’s a consistent focus on making states affordable for all families — which is why I’ve never supported a tax or fee increase and never will.

The competition between states gets more intense every day.

Blue states want to tax their way into prosperity, but it always fails.

Mamdani can keep hosting photo ops outside billionaires’ buildings.

Meanwhile, the people funding his city’s budget will keep doing what New Yorkers have been doing for years: They’ll call the movers.

Rick Scott represents Florida in the US Senate and served as the state’s governor.