Cuomo’s ‘Exodus’ Denial

‘The exodus from New York is over,” Gov. Cuomo proclaimed at the Buffalo stop on his State of the State tour. Guess he thinks the Census produces fake news.

Because the latest numbers from the US Census Bureau show the Empire State losing population slightly — a net loss of just under 2,000 people in the year that ended July 1, 2016. And that’s with foreign immigration (largely into the city) making up for a serious exodus of other New Yorkers.

For decades now, the state has grown less than the US average. Its losses to the rest of the country slowed amid the Great Recession — but now, notes the Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon, improving job markets in other states have outmigration rising again.

The governor brags that he’s cut state taxes to the lowest level in decades. Yet New York is dead last on the Forbes list of the Best And Worst States For Taxes — in other lists it rises all the way to 49.

Hence the tweet from Reclaim New York: “NY isn’t open for business, it’s just friendlier than New Jersey.”

Yes, Cuomo has slightly trimmed the state tax burden and capped local property taxes. But he shows no sign of confronting the ways state laws make it impossible to reduce New York’s crushing property taxes.

And of late he’s been adding to New York’s woes: His minimum-wage hikes have only begun to phase in, but — as Michael Saltsman notes on the page opposite — they’re already killing small businesses.

“Over,” Governor? It looks more like the middle-class exodus from New York has only begun.