Opinion: Corporate Democrats Who Refuse to Tax the Rich Are Protecting Their Donors. Vote Them Out. – City Limits

“Now is the time for new leaders to fight for working people. A more affordable New York starts with changing who represents us in Albany and passing policies that unrig our deeply inequitable tax system.”

Here’s what most establishment Democrats in Albany won’t say out loud: Their corporate donors completely dictate their public persona, the problems they seek to address, and the solutions they’re willing to entertain.

That’s why you won’t hear them proposing any bold fixes to our long-brewing affordability crisis. It’s why you’ll never see them pushing to make the ultra-wealthy and highly profitable corporations pay what they owe in taxes to replace lost federal funding and make deep, lasting investments in public services. And it’s exactly why we’re running to replace them in the State Assembly.

Our primary opponents—Assemblymembers Erik Dilan, Jenifer Rajkumar and Stefani Zinerman—have repeatedly declined to co-sponsor the Invest in Our New York bills or support tax increases on New York City’s millionaires and most profitable corporations, which would generate billions of dollars in public funds by making the wealthiest in our state pay their fair share. These legislators have the power to push transformative change for working-class voters, but choose to stand idly by. 

This cowardice shows who they really see as their bosses: the millionaires, billionaires and CEOs who bankroll their campaigns, not the thousands of constituents who support making our state’s tax system more equitable. In declining to bite the well-manicured hand that feeds them, corporate Democrats sell out the very people they claim to represent. They uphold a status quo that serves themselves and their donors—not you and your family.

The legislative package we support is broadly popular with a majority of New York voters across political affiliations and geographic regions. In fact, New Yorkers back candidates who want to raise taxes on the super-wealthy and most profitable corporations and who reject corporate donors, according to a 2025 Siena Research Institute poll. 

The need to raise new public money is especially dire given New York City’s massive budget shortfall and the billions of federal dollars our state is losing due to Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Around 1 million New Yorkers are in danger of losing their healthcare coverage, 200,000 New Yorkers are poised to lose their SNAP benefits and counties across the state face estimated new costs of $1.3 billion—all so New York’s millionaires can enjoy a fat $12 billion tax cut. 

These cuts exacerbated an affordability crisis that already made it nearly impossible for many New Yorkers to put food on the table or pay rent. The lack of affordable childcare is particularly egregious: Gov. Kathy Hochul says she wants universal childcare, but refuses to budget the revenue necessary to pay childcare workers a living wage or scale capacity across the state. Families who technically qualify for free childcare are languishing on long waitlists. 

The upshot: Working-class people are packing up and leaving because they can no longer afford to live here. Meanwhile, the state gained 12,694 millionaires in 2024, the most recent year for which data were available. 

Gov. Hochul, who adamantly refuses to even consider tax increases on the wealthiest New Yorkers, has made it clear that she sides with the donor class, not the working class. So have the state legislators who refuse to stand up to her. It’s no wonder New York is the most unequal state in the entire country.

This is unsustainable. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

We can earn New York a new reputation: the state where millionaires, billionaires and massive corporations actually pay what they owe. The state where working-class people can live with dignity, care for their families and plan for the future.

Now is the time for new leaders to fight for working people. A more affordable New York starts with changing who represents us in Albany and passing policies that unrig our deeply inequitable tax system.

Eon Huntley is a father, retail worker, lifelong Brooklynite, former PTA president, and democratic socialist candidate for NY State Assembly in District 56 (Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights).

David Orkin is an immigrant worker’s rights attorney, UAW union organizer, and democratic socialist running for New York State Assembly District 38 in Queens (Ridgewood, Glendale, Woodhaven, Richmond Hill, and Ozone Park).

Christian Celeste Tate is a Democratic socialist and community organizer running to represent parts of Bushwick and East New York (including Cypress Hills and City Line) in New York’s State Assembly District 54.