How To Fix Upstate New York?

Not through government "investments," writes a Buffalo ex-pat in today's Post-Standard:

A few years ago I wrote a letter regarding the "Come Home to Syracuse" campaign. At the time I wrote: "Come Home, Go Broke."

Three years later, the story is the same. Taxes haven't dropped one penny, and we still have the delusional government leaders thinking we need to dump even more money into schools, universities, economic development programs, blah, blah, blah. It's insanity!

This year I formed a company in Virginia Beach with a few ex-Buffalo residents, and we are going great guns. We are developing those much-talked-about "nanotechnology" products that seem to be the Upstate fantasy. And we are doing it with our own money, while giving a lot less in tax dollars to the local government.

Better yet, I received multiple patents in 2006 for some very high-end technology. I did it on my own dime, with no "University Technology Transfer" assistance. Who needs it? Just leave me alone, let me keep more of my tax dollars, and my personal Upstate economy will do just fine.

Scott Grimshaw
Marcellus