As unpredictable as sunrise

Obviously, no one in New York's treasury offices saw this coming.

(Click image for larger view.) Or maybe they did see it coming, but didn't care since the objective of raising taxers on the evil, heartless, bloodsucking parasites oppressors wealthy wasn't revenue at all, but "fairness." After all, that is the explicit position of the Obama administration.

Jason Furman, deputy director of Obama’s National Economic Council, said, “Our goal is to have a progressive tax system.”

Furman added that the tax was never intended “to bring the deficit down and the debt under control” (contradicting a past claim made by the president). The goal, according to Furman, is to establish “a basic issue of tax fairness.”

When I was in the Army, we used to say about our battle plans, "The enemy gets a vote." That is, the enemy will always do what he thinks is in his best interests, quite independently of what we want him to do.

New York's rulers forgot the civilian-side equivalent of that rule. When you raise taxes on people, people take measures to avoid paying those taxes. "The people get a vote," and not just at the ballot box. Those New York former taxpayers voted with their feet. But not to worry - it surely won't be long before New York emplaces an sizable exit tax on New Yorkers moving their accounts out of state.