Tom Golisano Quotes
In New York, the average total state and local tax burden is $5,260 for every man, woman and child. That's by far the highest in the country.
Golisano, Tom. Gubernatorial Campaign Remarks. New York, 2002.
This is the most articulate historical statement of the modern conservative mantra regarding taxes. However, one change has taken place. The words “necessarily” and “often” tend to be left out of the more modern ideological statements. Mellon’s original statement has never really had any politicians or economists who disagreed. Politicians of all economic persuasions have generally accepted the Mellon statement but the extreme conservatives’ creed is that a lowering of taxes always produces more revenue and a tax increase will inevitably lead to greater tax revenue—a position which Mellon never took. Mellon however was very solicitous of the wealthy, felt the welfare of the nation depended on their prosperity, and was a strong advocate of what was later called ‘trickle down’ economics {628592}.
He turned out to be very wrong as there were a number of times in American history when there were tax rates in excess of 70 percent, and they were collected.
An income tax had been instituted during the Civil War but had lapsed. Existing taxes were therefore all excise or head taxes—very regressive. Some politicians began floating the idea of bringing back the Income Tax. But the New York Congressmen objected on the grounds that New York would pay a much higher proportion of the taxes, then their population represented. Under the Civil War, income tax, New York State had paid one/third of the entire national tax burden.
Blase Thomas Golisano is an American entrepreneur, businessman, philanthropist, and author. He is the founder of Paychex, which offers payroll and human resources services to businesses. Golisano also owns Greenlight Networks, a fiber internet provider based in Rochester, New York. He owned the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League and Buffalo Bandits of the National Lacrosse League from 2003 to 2011. Golisano unsuccessfully ran for Governor of New York as a third-party candidate in 1994, 1998, and 2002. As of 2020, Golisano had a net worth of $4.2 billion.
