The tax base is mobile in a way expenses are not.
I'll speak to this personally. In April 2021 New York City raised its top tax rates. I'm only moderately wealthy, but that prompted my moving out of the state.
Same as universal healthcare, seems like you net benefit by removing these burdens from localities and businesses.
That's one option. Another is better distributing productive capital. Building public housing so its occupants wind up owning it, for instance.
But that's getting into top-down redistribution at the federal level, which isn't in the cards for now. Within the context of cities and states, pensions are no longer a good idea.