Scott Sipprelle is a venture capitalist and a former New Jersey Republican congressional candidate. He would like to share some barely-concealed class war rhetoric with the haughty poors of New York City, for some reason!

One interesting fact about Scott Sipprelle is that, when he ran for Congress in 2010 in New Jersey, he was a client of the political consultant Ken Kurson. Ken Kurson is now the editor of the New York Observer, and—miracle of miracles—Scott Sipprelle has found a home in the pages of the once-great Observer for his exasperated dramatic ruminations on how New York City (where Sipprelle used to live, presumably when he was less of a bore) is all set to go straight to hell thanks to Bill De Blasio and his outrageous anti-rich-person policies, which exist most fully in the imagination of Scott Sipprelle. "The Day New York Died," is how his column refers to the fateful day when De Blasio was inaugurated—"a challenge to... the very idea of New York," he warns. What terrors lay in store for our fair city under Comrade De Blasio?

The highly priced lawyers and accountants and service firms that support the finance industry are like the sea birds that follow a fishing boat back to the pier after a successful day on the water. You won't have one without the other. Similarly, the jobs in construction, real estate, retail stores, restaurants and entertainment venues depend critically on the fortunes of their most well-heeled customers. But New York is more than Wall Street. It is also the place where the world's wealthy come to mingle, work and live and where millions of tourists visit to bask and marvel at the enormity of it all.

1. Corporate lawyers are like sea birds because... you won't have fishing boats, without the birds that follow them? Well, Scott Sipprelle is businessman, damn it, not some fancy writer.

2. New York City is more than just Wall Street— it's also "where the world's wealthy come to mingle." Scott Sipprelle's New York runs the entire spectrum, from Wall Streeters to wealthy people.

At this point—with no real justification for why we might do such a thing—Scott Sipprelle asks us to imagine a New York City without all of the rich people.

You have a place that looks a lot like Philadelphia—a large eastern city on the water with interesting history and fiscal imbalances that seem to defy solutions. Philadelphia is mostly a Tale of One City. Lacking New York's high taxes on large numbers of high wage earners, the city is able to budget $3.6 billion in spending to support its 1.5 million residents. New York City's government, by contrast, is able to spend three-and-a-half times as much per capita, $70 billion on its 8.3 million citizens. New York is a place where trickle-down economics (supplemented by high taxes on high incomes) is a highly effective model for channeling resources to benefit its most disadvantaged.

If I read this correctly, Scott Sipprelle is saying that "high taxes on high incomes" here in New York is a "highly effective model." In other words, Scott Sipprelle here is voicing his support for the basic economic pillar of the plan that Bill de Blasio has advocated. His support comes embedded in a column that is raising panicky alarm about the plan that Bill de Blasio has advocated. It's almost as if Scott Sipprellle is just voicing a standard set of Republican platitudes with little intellectual coherence. He concludes:

Southern Connecticut, Texas and London all have compelling lifestyle and economic attractions for this new wave of financiers who operate in a brave new world that is digitally hyper-linked. This trickle-out trend of wealth leaving New York is already underway. The question is whether it becomes a flood.

You already live in New Jersey, Scott. I assure you that the people of New York City will not give a shit if you decide to move to London. (Or Texas!) We have plenty of entitled rich assholes of our own.

[Photo: AP]