The Working Families Party Finally Admits It Hates Taxpayers

The theory is that speaking up for taxpayers is actually perpetuating white oppression against people of color, while preventing government from confiscating more money from the public to support a radical increase in the government bureaucracy.

The WFP, which is the socialists' bastion of power in the Empire State, has become a force in New York politics. While it garners only single digits of the overall vote percentage, that’s enough to tilt a close election. More significantly, it can threaten to run its own candidate instead of cross-endorsing the Democrat in the field. This would split the liberal vote and possibly hand an election to a Republican.

That rarely happens though, because ultimately the sheepish Dems seeking maximum ballot coverage and minimum flack wind up kowtowing to even the most radical demands of this anti-establishment party.

Their latest questionnaire litmus test, placed before candidates, professes:

“Messages that frame ‘taxpayers’ as an aggrieved or marginalized group promotes an anti-tax, anti-government worldview that is often used to justify disinvestment and austerity policies… ‘Taxpayer’ has also become a racially coded term designed to appeal to white individuals and reinforce the misconception that they are paying taxes to support the needs of people (often implied to be non-white) who don’t pay taxes. Will you avoid messaging that centers ‘taxpayers’ or ‘tax burdens’ and instead talk about ‘public funding’ and the public as a whole?”

This is the rhetoric of extremists such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Squad. Yet, it is slowly, but surely, becoming the dogma of the Democratic Party (now more appropriately deemed the Democratic-Socialist Party) in New York, and indeed, across America.

So there you have it. According to the WFP, the enemy of the people is the taxpayers themselves.

The suburbs of New York City have the highest property taxes in the nation, led by Westchester County’s average $17,000 per household. Long Island, which was one of the nation’s first middle-class suburbs, is populated by 3 million people, most considered middle class folks just trying to work hard, pay their bills and get their kids through school. They’ve seen their disposable incomes and future dreams gobbled up by ever increasing confiscatory taxes, so naturally they beg elected officials to get their political feet off the homeowners’ throats. Heavens to Betsy. Get me my smelling salts, say the WFP faithful.

In the past, liberals would wail against the mega-millionaires not paying their fair share (even though in reality the top 1% pays 40% of all the revenues collected). But now, the target of these left wing crazies is average middle-class people who are simply crying out for relief, and are tired of being taxed out of their homes.

And that’s exactly what is happening. Insane property and income taxes have been the impetus for New York leading the nation in people fleeing for cheaper pastures.

The left has cleverly and consistently played the race card, but in the past their venom justifiably centered on the KKK and skinheads. Now it’s middle and working class whites who are supposedly suppressing people of color, simply because they have the audacity to rebel against paying $13,000 a year for a quarter-acre plot.

The only thing scarier than these socialists demanding that candidates sign this pledge to stop supporting taxpayers, is the fact that most Democratic candidates are likely to sign it. The Working Families Party is now the entity controlling the Democratic narrative. There’s very little space between state Democratic and Working Family ideology. Just look at the calls for massive tax hikes by candidates from Elizabeth Warren to Bernie Sanders. Warren is calling for a wealth tax. Sanders' Medicare for All seeks $34 trillion in new taxes.

A study by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Power the Future projects the cost of AOC’s Green New Deal to be over $70,000 per household in its first year.

I grew up as a Democrat and served as a state and local official as a Democrat before switching to Republican in 2010. As this latest racist, anti-taxpayer pledge suggests: This ain't my father’s party any more.

Steve Levy, former New York state assemblyman, Suffolk County executive, and candidate for governor, is now a distinguished political pundit. Levy's commentary has been published in such media outlets as Washington Times, Washington Examiner, New York Post, Albany Times, Long Island Business News, and City & State Magazine. He hosted “The Steve Levy Radio Show" on Long Island News Radio, and is a frequent guest on high profile television and radio outlets. Few on the political scene possess Levy’s diverse background. He’s been both a legislator and executive, and served on both the state and local levels — as both a Democrat and Republican. Levy published Bias in the Media, an analysis of his own experience, after switching parties, with the media's leftward slant. Levy is currently Executive Director of the Center for Cost Effective Government, a fiscally conservative think tank. He is also President of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. To learn more about his past work and upcoming appearances, visit www.stevelevy.info. To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.