Trump’s Secret to Getting Rich? Shafting the Taxpayer
Are New York values to blame for Donald Trump’s proclivity to rob the taxpayers?
A lot has been said about so-called New York values. It was said by Donald Trump in 1999 to mean “liberal values” when it came to social issues. Today he swears it means how people came together after 9/11. The definition keeps changing to fit the times, yet looking at Trump’s past, perhaps it means “being on the take,” which may be loosely what Ted Cruz has intimated by using the phrase.Certainly, you could describe the state’s Democrats as “being on the take,” after all, that’s what socialism is. As MargaretThatcher used to say: “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Cruz has hit the Democrats who run New York on their failed socialist utopia, but the Donald’s past is rife with screwing the taxpayer for his own benefit.
Using other people’s money is how Donald Trump got ahead; in fact, he was the subject of an LA Times report in 2011 titled, “Trump has thrived with government’s generosity.” The Times focused, as all leftists do, on the amount of money Trump short-changed the government through tax abatements and tax credits, but the article also cited the fact that he has actively sought money from the taxpayers to give himself a leg up, building that tremendous company.
Trump’s first deal in Manhattan was to transform the Hotel Commodore into a luxury hotel. He sought, and received, taxpayer money to make the renovation, and got a 40-year tax abatement to boot.
Was it stupid of the city council to approve these taxpayer funds to help Trump turn a profit? Of course; however, there is no question that Trump has been on the take for decades.
So early on, Trump had “them” coming and going. “Them” meaning the taxpayers. In a documentary entitled “Trump the Movie,” Donald was quoted as having laughed about how easy it was to convince government entities to give him money for his projects. Add to that the years upon years of tax abatements — just asking for them shows he has zero respect for the taxpayers of his home state and the nation.
But Donald Trump’s mentor, his father Fred, also used government largesse to create his empire. “Without FHA,” wrote Trump biographer Gwenda Blair, “Fred Trump would have been running a supermarket (one of his earlier investments). With it, he became the biggest builder in Brooklyn.”
This is why Donald’s mentality is that government is there to help you get ahead, instead of get out of your way to allow you to get ahead. Donald would never want the free market to remain truly free, because there would be nothing left for him to use to one-up the other guy (usually small businesses).
Coming back to New York values and the trickster way Trump twisted the meaning to invoke the emotions of 9/11, it is also true that Donald even took taxpayer dollars that were meant for small businesses as part of a recovery package after the terrorist attack.
The Weekly Standard reported back in February that federal funds, distributed by New York State, that were earmarked for small businesses affected by the terrorist attack ended up padding Trump’s pockets.
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Source: Trump’s Secret to Getting Rich? Shafting the Taxpayer
