Allen West mocks Andrew Cuomo’s costly failed jobs-creation program, Start-Up NY

Allen West mocks Andrew Cuomo’s costly failed jobs-creation program, Start-Up NY

Former Florida Representative, current head of a prominent free-market think tank in Texas, and friend of LU Allen West has joined the growing chorus of people mocking Governor Andrew Cuomo for his Start-Up NY scam, a $53 million jobs-creation plan that has thus far produced 76 jobs in the Empire State.

Start-Up NY is an initiative designed to allow businesses that locate in close proximity to state college campuses to be rewarded with 10 years of tax free operations. It allows the government to pick winners and losers through centralized planning. In other words, it embraces cronyism.

West compared Cuomo’s program to the embarrassment of President Obama’s “shovel-ready” jobs stimulus flop. He claims Cuomo must have seen how well the stimulus program worked and decided to develop his own “far left progressive” boondoggle.

West mocked the governor’s efforts to recruit businesses from Texas and Florida when “people are actually fleeing New York.”

Trying to recruit businesses from free market states is “truly laughable” according to West.

Townhall report indicates the massive spending being conducted in the name of advertising the Start-Up NY program in other states, while yielding little in the way of results.

Via the City Journal:

Few economic development initiatives in New York State’s history have been the subject of more marketing hype than START-UP NY, which created scores of tax-free micro-zones on and near college campuses around the state. Governor Andrew Cuomo has spared no superlatives in describing his expectations for the program, backing it with a slick, $47 million advertising campaign that touted START-UP as proof that “in New York State, we’re changing the way we do business.”

But the results so far haven’t come close to living up to the governor’s rhetoric. Companies that began operating in START-UP’s tax-free areas during 2014, the program’s first year, created just 76 jobs, according to a new report from Cuomo’s own economic development agency. The long-term growth projections aren’t much more impressive.

West reminds Cuomo that it his progressive platforms that kill job growth. “You support failed policies that don’t create jobs and opportunity, just more dependency,” he wrote.

The former Congressman was kind enough to create a new logo for Cuomo as well:

Start-up NYDemocrats prepared to defend the program were also hammered in West’s post. He mockingly spoke from a Democratic viewpoint. “We just need more time. We just need to spend more taxpayer money,” he said.

West added, “I believe it was Lady Margeret Thatcher who stated, ‘The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.’”

The verbal dress-down of progressive economic policies continued:

Folks, that’s the problem in Illinois, California, and New York — people are voting with their feet and the money is running out because the lucrative well of the tax base is fleeing to greener pastures where true opportunity resides. The evidence speaks for itself, it’s just that the truth continues to be dismissed.

Now, people from both sides of the political aisle are beginning to see just what a joke Cuomo’s economic acumen is. Will he learn and pull the plug on this wasteful program?

Cross-posted at the Mental Recession

Rusty Weiss

Rusty Weiss

Rusty Weiss is editor of the Mental Recession, one of the top conservative blogs of 2012. His writings have appeared at the Daily Caller, American Thinker, FoxNews.com, Big Government, the Times Union, and the Troy Record.

Comments

For your convenience, you may leave commments below using Disqus. If Disqus is not appearing for you, please disable AdBlock to leave a comment.