#Andrew Cuomo’s dubious bid to keep the wealthy from fleeing New York

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration is refusing to give specific guidelines for when indoor dining can resume in the city.
Hans Pennink

When it comes to socking New York’s economy with tax hikes, Gov. Andrew Cuomo gets it — for now. Unlike with his no-end-in-sight COVID restrictions.

“I literally talk to people all day long who are in their Hamptons house who also lived here . . . or in their Connecticut weekend house, and I say, ‘You gotta come back,’ ” he related. He even offered to cook dinner.

No luck; they’re not returning. Instead, they’re thinking: “If I stay there, I pay a lower income tax, because they don’t pay the New York City surcharge,” he added.

Cuomo’s right: Some of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods lost as many as 40 percent of their residents between March and May, thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak.

And new levies — a billionaires’ tax, an ultra-millionaires’ tax, etc. are among several ideas Dems are eyeing to plug Albany’s $30 billion two-year budget hole — will only push the rich to flee permanently. Taking their tax money with them.

It’s no coincidence, after all, that New York, where “1 percent of the population pays 50 percent of the taxes,” as Cuomo notes, has been steadily losing residents.

So kudos to him for standing up to his own party. But will he knuckle under later?

Remember Cuomo’s “no new taxes” vow in 2011? “You are kidding yourself if you think you can be one of the highest-taxed states” and have “a rosy economic future.”

Nor would he fold: “That everybody wants [the millionaires’ tax] doesn’t mean all that much. . . . I’m not going to go back and forth with the political winds.”

Yet he soon did, reimposing a form of that tax. It still exists today.

Worse, he’s now killing the economy by endlessly prolonging COVID-19 restrictions, like indoor dining. Indeed, as The Post reports, he doesn’t even have any metrics — let alone a plan — for when the state will more fully reopen.

Those rules not only hurt the economy and deprive government of tax revenue; they also keep the wealthy from returning. Mayor Bill de Blasio’s comments Wednesday — that he, too, has no real timeline but can’t see more reopenings until after Labor Day, at least — only sap the economy further.

Forget about people returning to the city; the question is how many more will leave?