"It's time to bring back trust busting"

It's Time to Make Comcast Political

by Zephyr Teachout

My name is Zephyr Teachout, and I'm running against Andrew Cuomo for Governor of New York in the Democratic Primary. I probably don't need to explain why to a group of progressives like you-- but there is a good reason why many of the Governor's most ardent supporters are Republican donors and elected officials: he delivers Trickled-down Republican economic policies as well as any Republican Governor in the country.

But progressive anger at Cuomo isn't the reason my candidacy is resonating. It's resonating because I'm saying something Democrats haven't heard in a long time. And that is the following: It's time to bring back trust-busting.

I use as my example that I'm going to stop Comcast from buying Time Warner cable, at least in New York. I don't want a New York where every street has a Bank of America and a Duane Reed, and nothing else. We need an economy full of small businesses, immigrant businesses, and small farmers. And that can't exist unless the Democratic Party becomes the home of trustbusters again, like it was under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, JFK, and Woodrow Wilson.

Andrew Cuomo is the Governor of New York, and he takes a lot of money from large powerful interests and then hands out tax credits to them. It's a Reaganomics model of financial monopoly capitalism. But the problem here isn't just Cuomo, it's that people like Cuomo dominate the Democratic establishment. Rahm Emanuel, Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, and so on and so forth, these people believe in a world where powerful economic interests control our lives and fate through monopoly power, and their partners in government help structure those monopolies. Political corruption and economic monopoly are two sides of the same coin-- too much concentrated power in too few hands.

I'm running in the Democratic primary because we have to break this cycle. We have restore our economic and political liberty. That means ending government corruption and breaking the excessive power of private kingdoms like Comcast that force all of us to kiss the ring to get something like internet and cable service.

Today, Democratic leaders, even some of the good ones, believe that Wall Street creates wealth, and that the role of the government is to protect those monopolies and then kick some of the resulting wealth to the middle class or poor. Their debate is whether to kick back a little, or a little more. Ultimately they think the role of government is to serve charity, not justice.

I believe the basis of wealth creation comes from ordinary citizens who have access to opportunity, and infrastructure. It's the immigrant restaurant, the neighborhood lawyer or baker or farmer, these are the people that build the society we love. Democrats need to represent them, Democrats should make sure that they have power, and that justice doesn't mean charity. It means balanced markets, competition, and flourishing small businesses.

When Ronald Reagan first started running California, he made some very significant policy shifts that echoed throughout the country. For example, he started charging tuition for California's formerly free college system. His policy resonates today as student debt tops $1 trillion, and more importantly in an army of young people who are essentially indentured servants. New York followed California's lead, and a once great public higher educational system is on life support.

In other words, what happens in our biggest states resonates deeply across the land. We need our own people in charge, progressives who believe in democracy, not just on important social questions like choice, but also on core economic questions like cable monopolies, infrastructure, and energy. This is why we are Democrats. This is why we believe. In New York, Democrats remember that FDR was our governor, because we are standing on some of the things he built. The biggest thing Andrew Cuomo ever built was a housing bubble. And we remember that too.

It's time for a new generation of Democrats, not in age but in spirit, to repudiate the corporate financiers. Liberty is our right as Americans, both negative liberty in that government should not punish the innocent, but also positive liberty in our right to have housing, medicine, education, and economic opportunity. That's why I'm running. That's what the Democratic Party used to stand for, and that's what we're going to make it stand for again.

And so, again, my name is Zephyr Teachout, and I'm running against Andrew Cuomo for Governor of New York in the Democratic Primary.