Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio.
During the third hour, Carmichael referenced an article written by a life long New York citing policy issues yet unable to recognize the causes for such. He later explained how it was Democrat-run cities that continue to fail their citizens under a one-party rule.
Leahy: Crom, we are entering a period of one-party rule at the national federal level. You and I were talking during the break about the dangers of one-party rule and in particular the dangers of one-party rule that we’ve seen for decades in states like California and New York.
Carmichael: Well Michael’s one-party rule is not only just in the states, but you also have some cities that have had a one-party rule. And every single one of them has seen a tremendous degradation in the living standards in those cities. Detroit for example with one of the great cities of the country. It’s been governed by Democrats for 60 years. It’s gone from one point two million people to 600,000 people.
Leahy: It’s a disaster.
Carmichael: A few years ago you could literally buy a home on a credit card. That’s how cheap it is.
Leahy: A credit card with like a thousand bucks on
Carmichael: That’s how cheap it got. This is an interesting article from a fellow who lives in New York. And he points some things out that are going on in New York that I didn’t know about. New York was deteriorating.
Leahy: New York City or New York state?
Carmichael: New York City. And tangentially the state. But New York City in particular because this guy’s a fund manager named Mark Kingdon and he’s lived in New York for his entire life. Has loves New York. But he talks about how New York once had two competing parties that provided checks on extremism and he says they do not anymore. He said the city council is far left. The administrative people. The mayor.
Leahy: They are all far far far left.
Carmichael: Yes, but here’s what’s happened recently. reducing the use of cash bail to avoid discrimination against the poor and what he says was understandable. And New York City’s Police Department’s decision to reduce the use of stop-and-frisk was a good one. Then later in the article, he talks about how great New York was under Giuliani and Bloomberg.
But he apparently misses the connection between really between the Broken Window Theory and stop, talk, and frisk and the reduction of not only crime but also reducing the prison population. Because in the lower-income areas if people could not carry a weapon and that’s really what it did. It stopped people from carrying weapons on the street because if a police officer thought they look suspicious or had a bulge they would go over and they’d stop them they talk to him then they’d frisk them. And if they had a gun boom, off to jail.
Leahy: Illegally had a gun.
Carmichael: Yes, illegally which almost all people in low-income areas who are carrying a gun are carrying a gun illegally. But I’m not trying to get into the nuance of that. What I’m saying is this guy loves what the city was like under the policies that he now denounces as if there’s no cause and effect. But he goes on to say that the number of shootings in 2020 is up 97 percent over 2019 because of the release of the prison population the homeless population is directly related.
Leahy: What a shock that is. I mean how who could have thought who would have predicted something like that?
Carmichael: He’s acknowledging and saying that this great release of the prison population is leading to much more violent crime and a great increase in homelessness. But he goes on to talk about how the city has now put back in rent control. And he said we’ve had rent-controlled in the past and ended up with buildings where the landlord could not afford to keep the building up. And so the building’s got turned over to the city essentially because of rent control right
Leahy: Because they couldn’t maintain them.
Carmichael: Yeah and now he is complaining about the rent control saying we’re going to go right back to the problems. And he says but don’t look to public housing to solve the problem because he says for three years in a row the public advocate Williams has included the city’s housing authority on his worst landlord watch with nearly half a million open work orders that would cost 45 billion to complete.
Leahy: So the city is not maintaining public housing. Basically, the city is the biggest slumlord in New York City.
Carmichael: By far.
Leahy: Why is that no surprise?
Carmichael: For our listening audience and for our Democrat friends out there, this is what Democrats do when they have total control. So you have now total state spending in New York is at $107 billion a year. That is twice as much as Florida which has a population 10 percent larger than New York.
So that’s how out of whack the state is. The city alone has spent more money than the entire state of Florida in the past 18 years New York’s population has grown four percent while the public payroll has grown 20 percent. And here’s the crazy part. in the last six years according to Manhattan Institute, the city’s average public pay has gone up 48 percent.
Leahy: Well, they get paid for doing a poor job. Apparently, that’s a relation. 48 percent.
Carmichael: 48 percent per employee. And the number of employees has gone up 20 percent. So the city itself is heading to bankruptcy.
Leahy: If you want to weigh in on all the blessings of one-party leadership in a city (Gives call-in number)
Carmichael: And then also in California Governor Newsom, there’s a recall effort that apparently has great momentum.
Leahy: Does it really? I’ve seen the reports that there there is a recall effort. It’s a huge undertaking to do that. But you’re seeing there’s momentum for this.
Carmichael: The mayor of San Diego was on Fox saying that the recall is gaining momentum. over a month ago they had 800,000 signatures. They needed 102 million. The guy leading the effort says that typically a recall effort takes $4.00 per signature. He said right now they’re their cost is .89 cents because
Leahy: Because people are so eager to sign up?
Carmichael: People are so eager to sign up that if you just have a sign recall Governor Newsom signature needed people will walk over to your table and sign.
Leahy: And I think the reason for this Crom, has to do with the hypocrisy of Newsom by saying you cannot go out. You cannot go to church, but I can go to any restaurant I want and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Carmichael: And my children can attend in-person private schools and the public cannot.
Leahy: We have a caller that wants to talk about this briefly. A caller in Nashville wants to talk about the problems of one-party control. Good morning Jean.
Caller Jean: Good morning. How are you guys today?
Leahy: We are ready to roll my friend.
Jean: Awesome. I am very sad about what the Dems have done to our country and what they have done to rent. I used to be a landlord many years ago and I was very young and naive.
Leahy: Where were you a landlord, Jean?
Jean: New Hampshire. I was born in born and raised in New Hampshire and did go and then went back to Massachusetts for a little while. and I am very very sad for what the Dems have done to our country and what they have done with run control. It’s heartbreaking.
Carmichael: Was rent control in, New Hampshire?
Jean: Not really. It was not but it might be now. But it should have been at that point, but I was a young landlord and very naive at 22 years old. and I am very sad to see what the Dems have done to our country and what they have done to the city of New York.
Leahy: Well, I think that’s a common view Jean. Thanks so much for calling. Crom, you want to continue about California and New York.
Carmichael: And here’s something else that the legislature that the city council is considering in New York and this is this is mind-bogglingly stupid.
Leahy: Well, hold it. Democrat. Mind-boggling stupid.
Carmichael: This will be the worst you’ve ever heard.
Leahy: I’m waiting.
Carmichael: They are they’re talking about taxing security trades. So if I have a broker, yeah who lives in New York and that broker executes a trade for me I will have to pay a tax on that transaction.
Leahy: Okay. What’s the logical response to that?
Carmichael: Because they want money. The city thinks they’ll get money.
Leahy: What will the brokers do?
Carmichael: They’ll move to Nashville or Florida or someplace that doesn’t tax securities because their customers will not want to pay a tax on a security transaction. I don’t even know what the right word is to describe the Democrat mentality and how they think they can just force their views on people and that they’ll just take it when they actually have alternatives.
Leahy: I think mind-boggling stupid is a very good start on that description Crom.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
