Trump's Secret to Getting Rich? Shafting the Taxpayer
By: Jen Kuznicki | April 12, 2016
 IAmSanjeevan | Flickr
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.
Trump asked the federal government for $200 million to augment the highway near an abandoned railroad yard, which would be the site for his new luxury hotel. Once a congresswoman secured the money, Trump would promise lower income units to qualify for yet another federally subsidized loan for his hotel. Not all of his pressure on federal monies worked, but he secured some of that and much more in the form of tax abatements from the state.
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.
He used government contacts to grab taxpayer dollars, threw cash at politicians, all to better his standing.
Remembering that day, how the reporters and others on the scene ran to get inside small restaurants and stores when the towers came down, it is not hard to back some sort of aid for these businesses covered in grey choking dust, debris and damage. But Donald Trump horned in on that package, too. After affirmatively asserting in an interview with German television that none of his properties were damaged and he is certainly not a small business owner, he received $150,000 from the aid package. Trump’s invoking the people that helped one another after 9/11 — a lofty, emotional plea — is sullied by the fact that he grabbed money meant for the small businesses during that horrific time for himself.
That’s not how business works. That’s how business helps government control the rest of us.
One of the main concepts that drives the conservative movement today is the abolishment of corporate welfare, of business-government partnerships, because what ends up happening is exactly what Donald did. He used government contacts to grab taxpayer dollars, threw cash at politicians, all to better his standing. His tactics are that of welfare queens and fraudulent disability claimants.
And who gets left in the lurch? It is the small businesses that make up the bulk of employers in this nation, who aren’t politically connected, who aren’t wasting millions on lobbyists and leveraging the taxpayer for sweet deals. Worse, being on the take destroys competition, and if capitalism is anything, it is competitive. When Trump and others step on the taxpayers to get ahead, capitalism is dead, and without capitalism, our nation can never be made great again.
- See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/04/trumps-secret-to-getting-rich#sthash.47afxxq8.dpuf |
