In the fight for taxes on the rich, Kathy Hochul just blinked.

Earlier this week, the Governor conceded to a tax on second homes in New York City worth over $5 million. The tax is a yearly surcharge on luxury residences in New York City — multimillion-dollar apartments that the wealthy collect and let sit vacant for most of the year. The tax is expected to raise around $500 million every year.

Not so long ago, Governor Hochul said she’d never consider taxes on the rich. While she loves to pretend that she cannot be influenced by her constituents’ demands, we know this isn’t true. Our movement, which recently elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani on a platform of taxing the rich to fund the affordability agenda, and which continues to grow with thousands of people talking to their neighbors, lobbying their legislators, and rallying across the state to tax the rich, has real power.

This is a big step forward. But we can win more.

Our city is still facing a $5.4 billion budget deficit. If it isn’t filled, this could mean devastating cuts to critical services. At $500 million in projected revenue raised, the pied-à-terre tax only accounts for one-tenth of what we need to fill that hole, and even less than what is needed to fulfill the full affordability agenda.

It’s a step in the right direction, but we aren’t done pressuring the governor to do more.

Donald Trump’s cuts are coming for New York. As a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill, New York’s millionaires will be $12 billion richer — while 450,000 people will lose their Essential Plan health coverage, and 300,000 households will lose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Working-class New Yorkers will get hungrier and sicker, while the rich hoard more wealth they don’t need.

These cuts, alongside New York’s well-documented affordability crisis, have put working families in our state on the back foot. The pied-à-terre tax, while raising money from some of the most obscene symbols of concentrated wealth in our city (multimillion-dollar second and third homes), will not alone fill the gap and protect New Yorkers from cuts to essential services.

New York City Democratic Socialists of America, alongside our broad coalition of community and labor organizations, is fighting for legislation that doesn’t just fill the cuts, it funds the affordability agenda — broad-based taxes on millionaire incomes and enormously profitable corporations that provide significant stable and recurring revenue.

The City Corporate Tax, introduced in the state legislature by socialist legislators Kristen Gonzalez and Diana Moreno, would increase taxes on the most profitable New York City businesses to bring rates closer to neighboring states like New Jersey. This measure would raise $11.75 billion per year. The Fair Share Act, sponsored by socialist State Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest, would increase New York City’s personal income tax by 2 percent on incomes over $1 million — the “2 percent on the 1 percent” that Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigned on.

These bills are critical in part because New York City does not have the ability to raise taxes on its own and has to rely on the state. We are also fighting for similar statewide tax increases on millionaire incomes and multimillion-dollar corporations to fund expanded social services, including expanded childcare, for all New York State residents.

As democratic socialists, we understand that taxes are not punishments — they are fiscal tools to provide the revenue we need for excellent public goods that benefit everyone, from ensuring New York’s children receive the highest standard of public education to taking on the housing crisis. In our current political and economic system, which is distorted to protect the richest while the workers who keep our society functioning are continually asked to do more with less, it is not radical to demand the richest pay what they owe.

Governor Hochul argues that broad-based taxes on the rich are too risky in an election year against a Republican opponent. She is tailing Republicans in an effort to beat them — the same strategy that, on a national level, gave us two Trump terms.

We know that if government doesn’t deliver for working people, they will stay home or go to the right at election time. The latest polls show 54 percent of voters want Governor Hochul and the state legislature to approve a tax hike on New York City residents making over $1 million. Support is even greater among New York City voters and Democrats, with 62 percent of the former supporting the proposal and 72 percent of the latter. If Hochul wants to turn out the Democratic base to defeat Republican challenger Bruce Blakeman and support Democrats downballot, she should tax the rich.

Governor Hochul has demonstrated that she can be responsive to popular demands from her own constituents. She offered this concession because, with the entire legislature and a majority of New Yorkers backing taxes on the rich, she’s backed into a corner. This isn’t the time to let up. State budget negotiations are only weeks away from their conclusion, and we’re going to keep fighting to make the rich pay everything they owe.