It’s enough to make you think Barack Obama doesn’t love New York. OK, let me be clear: The president of the United States hates us.
He socks New Yorkers with massive new taxes to fund his health-care monstrosity.
He punishes Wall Street for making too much money.
He threatens political jihad against anybody who dares challenge the too-precious Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
He tells our governor to take a long walk on a short bridge.
Not since Gerald Ford told us to drop dead has New York been so clearly in the White House cross hairs. At least that made some political sense.
This is nuts. Yet it’s what New Yorkers get for giving Obama nearly 63 percent of our votes in 2008, the third highest among the 50 states.
Imagine if we had voted againsthim.
His lack of gratitude alone should be enough to turn a blue state red. That he actually seems hostile to our interests should add fury to our resistance.
The only hitch is that New Yorkers aren’t as smart and tough as everybody thinks. Our savvy pugnacity is an urban legend.
When it comes to politics, if you hit us, we beg and plead: Do it again.
Terrorists knock down the World Trade Center and kill nearly 2,800 people. We can’t get it together to build a proper memorial, but our mayor and other pols roll over when Obama wants to bring some of the killers here for a show trial. In the shadow of Ground Zero, no less.
The amen corner cheers and shouts out for more pain. Please, Mr. President, shut down our city, make it a target again, anything you want, sir.
We’re ready to give the 9/11 killers the right to mock the dead and threaten the living. We’ll pretend they are innocent until proven guilty. That’ll show the terrorists what great folks we are!
When faced with any mystery, the best question is always “Why?” And so it is when solving the riddle of Obama’s assault on New York and our eager complicity.
Take Obama first. He spent two years on the Upper West Side as a Columbia student (pictured above), from which he got into Harvard Law School, which helped launch his historic career.
Said career was financed in large part by New York money and, after he vanquished our favorite carpetbagger, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama got 4.8 million of our votes, to only 2.7 million for John McCain.
When he was staffing his team, he frequently went for those who, by birth or choice, were New Yorkers — his secretary of state, his treasury secretary, his attorney general, his housing secretary, his urban czar, his car czar, his political director, his health and arts leaders.
Now when he turns to New York, it’s usually with a clenched fist. At least some of the money he’s using to bribe other states to buy his health-care boondoggle is coming from our pockets. He doesn’t even ask or bother to say thanks.
Gov. Paterson estimates the state sends about $55 billion more to Washington than it gets back. And it’s getting worse. The Obama agenda is adding mightily to what the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan called the “balance of payments deficit.”
None of this would be possible, of course, if our representatives actually stood up for New York. But the men and women we send to Washington march in liberal lockstep by voting time after time to tax their neighbors at home so the people in places like Nebraska, Louisiana and Florida can get a free ride. You see, the plucky pols in those states protect their own.
So why do our pols always screw us?
Because we let them get away with it.
TAXMAN, AUDIT THYSELF!
The Hill newspaper reports that the nation’s chief taxman does not do his own taxes because the tax code is so complex. IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said he uses a tax preparer.
“I’ve used one for years. I find it convenient. I find the tax code complex, so I use a preparer,” Shulman said.
The notion is so absurd that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Apparently, Shulman has never considered trying to make the rules simpler. And he probably thinks it is somebody else’s job to put them into plain English.
I’m tempted to ask whether he takes ordinary Americans for idiots, but I’m afraid I already know the answer.
Comptrol freak’s a real Liu-Liu
DID you hear? The city is about to declare a new holi day. Actually, only part of the city. That would be the part under the sovereign ju risdiction of Comptroller John Liu. Among King Wacky’s first official acts was to order his staff to stand when he enters a room and to call him “Mr. Comptroller.” He also ditched casual Friday dress and wants everybody to get to work when he does. He bears close watching. If he starts printing his own currency and puts his face on it, I’m outta here.
We owe cop & fire heroes our ’09 lives
Last year’s economic crisis was a bummer for Gotham, but the good news is that more of us are alive to complain about it.
We learned earlier that murders hit a modern low in 2009, and we now know that fire deaths did, too.
The 73 fire-related deaths last year were the lowest since 1919, when 77 perished. That’s incredible when you realize the city had a population back then of “only” 5.6 million, instead of today’s 8.3 million.
Response times, averaging 4 minutes, 2 seconds for all structure fires, were the best ever, Mayor Bloomberg announced.
Ditto for murders. The 470 last year were the fewest since the city started keeping consistent records more than 40 years ago.
These are amazing accomplishments. Three cheers and a hearty salute to the Bravest and the Finest.
Hey, O, terror takes no holiday
ADD two more names to the list of Obama administration officials who didn’t let the attempted Christmas Day terror attack interrupt their vacations.
CIA boss Leon Panetta stayed in California despite the attack and a subsequent Afghanistan bombing that killed seven of his agents. His top deputy, Stephen Kappes, was also out of town, although he returned just after the Dec. 30 bombing that killed the agents.
It was reported earlier that a top counterterrorism official, Michael Leiter, left for a six-day ski vacation the day after the airliner attack. There were no sightings of Vice President Joe Biden or Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, either.
The president, of course, is in no position to complain. Doing a good imitation of Punxsutawney Phil, he stayed hidden in his Hawaii hole until a perfunctory appearance on Dec 28. He then went back to more golf and tennis until after New Year’s Day.