Remember when New York was a major national hub - maybe the major national hub - for business, for enterprise, for wealth? Well, thanks to years of socialist rule, capped by the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor - an unabashed "democratic socialist," or a communist by any other name - New York is no longer that major national hub. Business owners and anyone with a greater net worth than a Coney Island hot-dog vendor is heading out of the city.
Meanwhile, Texas Governor Greg Abbott is calling to the New York refugees, "C'mon down!"
As New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani continues to advance policies targeting wealthy executives, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is reminding billionaires that everything is bigger in Texas – including economic opportunity.
Abbott is pitching his state as a refuge from liberal measures Republicans attribute to driving businesses out of the Empire State.
For New York, the stakes are high: even a modest outflow of firms and top earners could dent tax revenues and reshape the city’s role as a global financial hub. For Texas, the influx could mean more jobs, investment and economic clout.
Yeah, for New York, that ship has sailed. But for Texas? A big part of the passenger manifest of that same ship may be preparing to debark in Dallas, in Ft Worth, in Houston, or in Austin. And the great state of Texas has rolled out the red carpet for the same millionaires and billionaires that Mayor Mamdani was driven away.
Against that backdrop, Abbott’s office is making an aggressive case for relocation.
"Governor Abbott is proud to welcome businesses and job creators from across the country to Texas, where we have no state income tax, reasonable regulations, and a pro-growth environment that encourages free enterprise to flourish," the governor's press secretary Andrew Mahaleris told Fox News Digital.
What do you know - incentives do matter.
Read More: NYC in Crisis: Business Leaders Now Begging Billionaires Not to Flee the City
The Great Sorting, about which I've written a lot in the last couple of years, is largely an economic phenomenon. There are political sides to it, as we can see with political conservatives and even moderates leaving increasingly left-wing states like Washington, Oregon, and California for more sane places like Florida and Texas. There are cultural sides to it, as those same political conservatives are tired of constant agitation by people who consider them to be the literal incarnation of a certain Austrian guy with a funny mustache. But in large part, this is an economic phenomenon, and we can only hope that the people packing up their businesses and practices and leaving New York and California for Texas and Florida are bearing in mind that it was the increasingly far-left Democratic Party that made the messes they are fleeing.
None of this is good news for New York. But there's a lesson here, assuming that the leftists who vote for people like Zohran Mamdani are capable of assimilating it; incentives matter. In all things, incentives matter. New York is incentivizing the wealthy, productive, and ambitious to leave. Texas is incentivizing them to come to Texas, to bring their businesses, their enterprise, their ambition with them. This will end well for Texas. For New York? Not so much.
Economic growth in Texas is already above the national average.
Texas’ economic output per person jumped more than 10% from 2021 to 2024, according to federal data. Meanwhile, liberal states like California saw far smaller gains over the same period.
Look at each state's politics and policies. Think about incentives. When you do that, everything around this makes perfect sense.
Editor’s Note: New York City is now facing the consequences of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist takeover.
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