A Silly Little Flier Made a Big Man Cower?

If ever there was a con, itwas when Hamister said he would quit a $25 million deal because of a little flier like this....

Two weeks ago, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo entreated businessman Mark Hamister not to back out of a proposed 110-room hotel project after Hamister threatened to pull out after a political flier suggested he was engaged in a "con game."

Truly, what developer leaves a $25 million hotel deal - replete with millions in subsidies snatched off the backs of hard working, over-burdened taxpayers - because of a political flier?

Hamister stayed in the deal.

Was there any doubt?

If one had the lack of basic decency, and indifference to the people, not to be bothered by taking money from the sweat and toil of taxpayers, in order to be able to build himself a hotel, that his own skill and ability would not permit, one would think that that same person would hardly be squeamish about being called a "con man."

One would think that such a man would not run from a deal because of a flier.

Imagine how much harder people will have to work in order to pay enough taxes to give Mark Hamister $2.75 million for his hotel.

How many man hours and how many hours will nameless men and women have to work so that Hamister will get millions of their taxes to build a hotel?

People don’t look at it this way.

They think money comes from government, never thinking that government gets its money by taking it from the people.

And what they take from the people is their labor.

Why should a poor man work to build Hamister a hotel and give Andrew Cuomo a headline?

As if Cuomo used his own money.

Even half a man would say, "I will do it all myself with my own brain and strong right hand."

But corporate welfare guys, like Hamister, say they are building a city, a state, a nation, that they will only do it on the strength of the people's brains and with the people's hands.

And that they are the needed ones, for without them, they say, who would build?

Who would do things for the people.

That nothing would get done.

That men such as these would leave a deal, where thousands will work for free to help build him a hotel, because of a fifty-cent flier?

If Hamister can raise enough money from the private side - from people who actually have to work before they spend - construction of the hotel, that will also include 24 apartments and some retail space, should commence next summer.

Hamister is trying to get a Hilton, Marriot or Intercontinental franchise for his hotel.

Meantime, the people will work silently and pay taxes to get him his hotel, and sleep in coarser beds, and rise earlier to get him what he wants.