Businesses will leave, as they do high taxed areas. With no one to support, the ones living on support, the city will implode.

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By Vaughn Golden

Gov. Kathy Hochul is pushing a New York City tax hike to replace the $15 congestion pricing tolls she indefinitely postponed — a last-minute funding Hail Mary that drew fierce opposition Thursday.

Lawmakers and business groups slammed the prospect of a tax increase, especially after Hochul scuttled congestion pricing Wednesday because it would “break the budget” for the working class.

“Proposing another tax is an insulting joke that will only exacerbate the affordability crisis that Gov. Hochul pointed to as her reason for killing congestion pricing,” Assemblyman Matt Slater (R-Putnam) told The Post.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has floated a payroll mobility tax increase to replace congestion pricing funds. Governor Kathy Hochul/Facebook

“The combination of corporate income, payroll and other taxes on New York City businesses already has them paying some of the highest effective rates in the nation,” noted Ken Girardin, director of research at the Empire Center for Public Policy.

Bigwigs and politicos who already felt burned by Hochul’s flip-flop on congestion pricing said the tax proposal shows she had no real Plan B to make up for the $1 billion a year Manhattan tolls would have raised for the flailing transit agency — and they’re not likely to throw her a lifeline.