-By Warner Todd Huston
Water is wet. The sky is blue. And Democrats aren’t friendly to taxpayers. These should be natural assumptions, of course, and in the age of Obama the later is more true than ever. But color powerful New York businessman Tom Golisano surprised that, even after he gave tons of cash to New York Democrats, he was treated like an annoyance when he asked them not to raise taxes in the Empire state.
Golisano says that he was ignored and shunted aside after his big money donations to New York’s Democratic power players in Albany and so he worked with Republicans to engineer the stunning upset that put the New York State Senate back in the hands of the GOP early this week.
I only have to ask: why did Golisano ever imagine that mere campaign donations would keep these Democrat leopards from changing their big taxing spots?
According to The New York Times, Golisano “spent heavily to help Mr. Smith and other Democrats win control of the Senate in the November” but was “angry to hear they were now planning to raise taxes on the wealthy.”
Golisano reports that when he, a big donor to Senate majority leader Malcolm A. Smith’s campaign, went to visit the leader in his offices, Smith “played with his BlackBerry and seemed to barely listen.” The shock of Smith’s arrogance and dismissive attitude was too much for Golisano. We all know what happened next. Golisano, the Senate Republicans and two defecting democrats made history in New York.
But here is the point that must be underlined: Despite promises of working with the business community, despite receiving donations in the hundreds of thousands from “the rich,” despite claims of wanting an Obamaian bi-partisan government, New York’s Democrats returned to type as soon as they felt it was too late to stop them from doing so. Out the window went all claims and promises and their true tax-the-rich policies came out to plunder the earners of the state. Out went any working with those that donated so lavishly and in went the typical, Democrat class warfare mode of operating.
The big question though causes one to wonder why Golisano and those like him all across the country ever think that Democrats will attend to their needs in the first place? As soon as they get fairly elected, Democrats revert to tax-and-spenders out solely to garner votes of those that are recipients of government largess. The Democrat Party is simply anti-business, anti-capitalist, pro-welfare and for greatly increased taxes. They have been since the 1940s when FDR realigned the party to socialist policies. Why does anyone think they’ll be any different when the last 70 years or so should have disabused all who are paying attention of the notion?
But maybe Golisano isn’t so foolish after all. Buried in the story is a line informing us that Golisano “recently moved his primary residence to Florida.” Why did he do that? Well, who can blame him for fleeing a city that has put so many unfair burdens on its higher earners and had until this week planned to indulge in even further plunder?
Not I, for sure.
(Photo credit: David Duprey/Associated Press)
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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