It was only a couple of months ago that I had a post contrasting the states of New York and Florida on many different measures of public policy and success (or failure). The two states are roughly equal in population, yet are at opposite ends of the spectrum on major public policy issues, with New York following the high-tax, high-spend, high-regulation model, and Florida the low-tax, low-spend, low-regulation model.

It seems like every day things get worse for New York and better for Florida. At the time of that December 22 post, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had just ordered a complete shut-down of indoor restaurant dining in New York City, without offering any indication as to how long the shut-down would last or when it might end. Supposedly this was necessary to slow the most recent surge of the coronavirus pandemic. The shut-down then remained in effect until Valentine’s Day, a week ago, leaving every restaurant in the City to either close completely, or attempt to go forward with outdoor dining in January and February, with dinner time temperatures mostly in the 20s and, as it happened, one snowstorm after another. The Valentine’s Day reopening only allows restaurants to operate at 25% capacity indoors. I have been very impressed by the hard work and bravery of many restaurants in my neighborhood soldiering on through this madness, but it has been very sad to watch. A good half of the restaurants are now closed, although it is possible that some may reopen if they are ever allowed to do so on reasonable conditions.

And meanwhile, it’s not just restaurants. Pretty much every sort of event has been closed down now for close to a year. The Broadway and Off-Broadway theaters are all closed. Movie theaters are still closed. Concerts are all suspended or postponed. Schools remain mostly closed or open for perhaps one or two days per week. Most office buildings are theoretically open, but by my own observation they are largely ghost towns.

Daughter (and frequent contributor) Jane Menton runs a debate series called the Soho Forum, that as its mission holds live debates, roughly monthly, on policy issues of interest to libertarians. Those live events were suspended, and became virtual, about a year ago. This week, on the 18th, they finally held their first live debate in a year — at The Villages, in Florida (outside Orlando).

In the state government, Governor Cuomo in January proposed a budget for the fiscal year beginning April 1 of $193 billion. Although the budget is relatively flat from the previous year, there is anticipation of decreased revenues at current tax rates, basically brought on by forced business closures said to have been a necessary response to the pandemic. The Governor plans to cover most of the shortfalls through anticipated bailouts in federal “relief” bills. The Albany Democrat and Chonicle on January 19 quoted the Governor as follows from his annual budget address:

Cuomo said he believes the federal government should bear the full costs of the pandemic, which opened up a $5 billion hole in the state's current spending plan and a $10 billion hole for the coming fiscal year.

Over in the New York State legislature, progressive Democrats strengthened their majorities in both houses in the recent election. All the talk there is of the exciting new ways they can get “the rich” to pay their “fair share” of taxes, in the hopes of expanding every kind of spending program on the progressive wish list. The hot new idea is what they call a “mark to market” tax, a kind of wealth tax, whereby some group of those deemed rich (I haven’t seen a threshold) would be required to value their assets each year and pay capital gains taxes, even if the assets were not sold. From the Wall Street Journal, February 18:

A growing coalition of unions, progressive advocacy groups and Democratic officials has endorsed a slate of six revenue bills, including a so-called mark-to-market tax on billionaires, which would require them to pay capital-gains taxes each year as their assets appreciate, even if they don’t sell. The tax menu also includes increases to income and capital-gains taxes as well as a proposed tax on financial transactions. . . . Supporters said the mark-to-market tax would bring in the most revenue—an estimated $23 billion—in the coming state fiscal year that could be used to fund education and healthcare that would otherwise face cuts because of the pandemic. “There is no excuse as to why our billionaires are not paying their fair share, and that they’re hoarding their wealth and using loopholes to escape their fiscal responsibilities,” said state Sen. Jessica Ramos, a Democrat from Queens who sponsors the tax.

In all the excitement, these guys don’t seem to realize that this mark-to-market tax would be the most volatile of all possible taxes, with revenues generated sure to go right to zero whenever the market has a down year. What could go wrong?

And then, of course, we have the coronavirus response, where Cuomo somehow got designated a media hero for all his brave lockdowns and business suppression, only to have the state end up with the second-worst deaths per capita among all states, currently (February 20) 2,412 per million population, just slightly behind worst-of-all New Jersey at 2,571. But Cuomo won the Emmy for his performance at press briefings on the virus!

Meanwhile, a week after Cuomo unveiled his $193 billion state spending plan, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida put forth his own plan for spending of $96.6 billion over the same period. In other words, Florida’s state budget is just about exactly half New York’s, even though the state of Florida now has about 10% more population. The Florida budget is balanced — and indeed proposes increasing reserves to over $6 billion — without any income tax at all, and without counting on any federal bailout. There is even some modest tax relief in the proposal, mostly in the form of an 8-day “back to school” sales tax holiday.

Over on the coronavirus front, Florida remains wide open for business, and yet has achieved results in the top half of states, and far, far superior to those of New York with its drastic and never-ending lockdowns. Deaths per million as of February 20 are at 1,388 (compared to New York’s 2,412), or just over half as many. Throughout the pandemic the left-wing media have been desperate to vilify DeSantis for his refusal to yield to demands for totalitarian business, school and recreation restrictions. For example, who can forget Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post back on April 1:

DeSantis’s delay in taking steps to save lives — steps that are patently obvious — is reckless in the extreme and morally indefensible. No state is immune to the virus nor to fatalities. But the difference between the inescapable, unpreventable deaths and the death count that will result from willfully ignorant and stubbornly counterproductive decisions falls on the heads of political decision-makers. DeSantis will be morally — if not legally — responsible for hundreds if not thousands of preventable deaths.

Looking around today for an apology from Rubin, I can’t seem to find it. And, despite Florida’s demonstrably superior results relative to almost all of the severe-lockdown states, the left-wing media are still desperately searching for some kind of gotcha. Last night the NBC Nightly News (does anyone still watch that?) went with a story claiming that DeSantis “stands accused of using the Covid-19 vaccine to reward powerful political supporters and developers by setting up pop-up vaccination sites in planned communities they developed and where GOP voters predominate.” At The Right Scoop today, they point out that the “powerful political supporters” were actually old people, who tend to vote Republican, and the vaccine was being distributed in accordance with DeSantis’s “elderly first” distribution scheme. Shocking!

Every few weeks I seem to learn that another friend has bought a condo in Florida and is somehow arranging to spend just over half the year there.