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7/27/2019 Long Island Jewish World and Jewish Sentinel Profile Of John Burnett
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/long-island-jewish-world-and-jewish-sentinel-profile-of-john-burnett 1/2
By ROBERT GOLOMB
Tell John Burnett, the
Republican Party nominee
for New York City comptrol-
ler in the November election, that
there are six registered Democrats
for every registered Republican in
New York City, and you’ll be a bit
surprised to see a smile coming to
his face. Tell him that in New York
City’s last citywide election in 2009
the Republican candidate for comp-
troller, Joseph Mendola, won less
than 20 percent of the popular vote
in losing to current and now retiring
Comptroller Democrat John Liu,
and you’ll see the smile remaining.
Tell him further that you have to go
back to Joseph D. McGoldrick, who
served from 1938-1945, to find the
last elected Republican comptroller
of New York City, and you will see
that he still appears unbothered.
When I brought all this New York
City electoral history to Burnett’s
attention during an interview in his
Manhattan campaign office
held Sept. 11 — the first
interview he has granted fol-
lowing the previous day’s
Democrat Party primary
won by Scott Stringer —
he appeared undaunted.
“Actually, I am well aware of the disparity [between
Democrat and Republican
registered voters], and I know
how handily John Liu defeat-
ed Joe Mendola, but none of
that alarms me,” he said.
The reason the 6-1 outnumbering
of Democrats to Republicans in the
city fails to alarm Burnett is simple,
he said. “If you look at the
Republican victories in the last five
mayoral elections, the elections of
Mayor Giuliani and Mayor
Bloomberg clearly show that New
York City voters have the ability
and intelligence to put their party
affiliation aside and vote for the per-
son whom they believe will best
serve them.”
Equally simple for Burnett is the
reason Mendola was so crushingly
defeated by Liu four years ago. “I
like and respect Joe, but he did
not run an active campaign,
and the Republican Party quite
frankly did not encourage him
to do so. I promise you I am
running to win and will have
the Republican Party fully
behind me. In addition, unlikeJoe, who had an opponent run-
ning against him on the
Conservative line, I will be on
the Republican, Conservative
and the Independent School
Choice lines.”
As to the point about
McGoldrick, Burnett maintained
the same glass-is-half-full outlook
on his chances in November. “I
know it’s been a long time since a
Republican was elected as comp-
troller. To me that means the time is
long overdue [to elect one].’’
Burnett, who told me h
extensive research on th
New York City comptro
prepared for the race and
just who McGoldrick w
“While its been almos
since a Republican last
comptroller], many Democrats [who served
trollers] were fiscally co
That includes Mario P
[1966-1969], Harriso
[1974-1989], William
[2002-2009] and to a cer
even John Liu now.”
While both Dem
Republican party
that Elliot Spitzer, with
publicly well known pe
political baggage, would
the easier opponent for h
said he looks forward
against Stringer, which
began the moment St
declared the winner o
election night.
“Whether I ran ag
Trying to Reverse the TrendWill John Burnett become NYC’s first Republican comptroller since 194
continued
12 JEWISH WORLD • OCTOBER 25-31, 2013
John Burnett, Republican candidate for New York City comptroller.
ELECTION 2013
‘As comptroller, I will always remember that we are makinginvestments for millions of men and women whose
retirement benefits are financially crucial to them.’
7/27/2019 Long Island Jewish World and Jewish Sentinel Profile Of John Burnett
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/long-island-jewish-world-and-jewish-sentinel-profile-of-john-burnett 2/2
Spitzer or against Mr. Stringer, the
critical issues confronting New
York City as a municipality and its
eight million good citizens remain
the same. ... I am using the opportu-
nity of this interview to challenge
Mr. Stringer to a series of televised
debates where we can present our
views, which contrast sharply onthe three most vital issues — pen-
sion plan enhancement, government
accountability and transparency,
and job growth through private sec-
tor economic development.’’
We discussed Burnett’s pension
plan reform plan, a controversial
proposal to combine the five sepa-
rate pension plans of New York
City public employees into one
comprehensive plan. “I don’t know
why it would be considered to be
controversial,” he asserted. “This is
a plan that John Liu believed in,
and, in fact, had started to work on.
It will reduce by millions of dollars
the redundant administrative costs
and fees incurred by running five
separate systems. When they retire,
these savings will go directly to the
pension plans of our hard-working
police officers, firefighters, teachers
and sanitation workers as well as to
all other New York City civil serv-
ice employees. ... It is true, I fully
understand, that people do not like
change, but this is a change which
studies show will benefit all New
York City retirees.”
Burnett, whose mother, Mary, a
cook and dietician at a child-care
center, died in 2005 of congestive
heart disease and whose father,James, a chef, died in 2006 of can-
cer, told me that pension plan
reform is a deeply personal matter
for him. “My parents depended
greatly on their pensions,” he said.
“This dependence increased as they
became ill later in their lives. So I
have a deep personal understanding
of why maintaining a healthy pen-
sion plan is so important to so many
people. ... As comptroller, I will
always remember that we are mak-
ing investments for millions of men
and women like my mom and dad,
people whose retirement benefits
are financially crucial to them both
today and in the future.”
Less controversial is his plan for
a greater degree of accountability
and transparency in the city govern-
ment, about which he contended,
“Every candidate for [New York
City] comptroller over the past
years has promised to reduce waste
and fraud in government. Few have
made good on that promise. But,”
he promised, “this is something I
will begin to address my first day in
office. I have 20 years’ experience
with auditing and compliance with
multimillion-dollar businesses and
corporate and individual invest-
ments. I will utilize this experience
to formulate risk assessments and
corrective action plans, which will
save our hard-working citizens mil-
lions of their tax dollars.”
Yet Burnett believes his most
important responsibility will be in
the area of private sector job
growth. “A mixed economy which
includes small businesses, corpora-tions, construction and the financial
industry are vital to the financial
well-being of our city. It creates
well-paying jobs and is responsible
for generating the tax dollars that
pay for the services the city pro-
vides. ... We must have tax policies
that encourage already-existing
businesses to remain in the city and
which attract other businesses to
come here. There is nothing in our
economy that can take the place of
thriving and growing businesses.”
B
urnett’s rise in the business
world evolved from working as
a teenager at a cash register at
Pathmark to serving in a mid-man-
agement position in the financial
industry to, while still in his 30s,
overseeing multimillion dollar cor-
porate and private investments on
Wall Street. Holding a B.S. with
dual honors from NYU and an
MBA from Cornell, he credits his
parents for his success.
“My parents always stressed the
importance of getting a job and per-
forming your best at every job you
ever have,” he told me. “They also
stressed the importance of studying
hard and receiving the best educa-
tion available. ... I am thankful thatmy dad was alive to see me receive
my undergraduate degree. It is my
greatest sorrow that my mom,
whom I promised I would complete
my education, was not there to see
me graduate from NYU and
Cornell, which not coincidentally,
were among the schools she wanted
me to attend.”
The father of a 19-year-old
daughter who is a sophomore at an
out-of-town college, Burnett
explained to me that he wants his
daughter to live in New York City
after she graduates from college in
three years, but said that his daugh-
ter, like thousands of other young
adult New Yorkers, might find it
difficult to secure a suitable job. On
that note, our conversation returned
to the economy. “The city’s unem-
ployment rate is a staggering 7.5
percent, on par with the national
average. Hardest hit are the young
just graduating from high school or
college and African Americans and
Latinos of all ages.”
To reverse this trend and create
well-paying jobs in the city,
Burnett, promised, if elected, to
“use the power of my office to sup-
port and facilitate and create proj-
ects such as the renovation of
Midtown East [a plan supported by
Mayor Bloomberg to pass new zon-
ing laws in the immediate area sur-
rounding Grand Central Station,
enabling real estate developers to
replace old, supposedly out-of-date
buildings with high-tech, energy-
efficient new constructions]. This
plan, and others like it, will help
New York City retain its status as
the business capital of this growing-
ly competitive world, and also cre-
ate thousands of new jobs in the
construction industry, which will
then mushroom into thousands of
more jobs in restaurants and other
local retail establishments.’’
Reiterating a previous statement,
Burnett also promised to “use my
experience in auditing and assess-
ments to fight fraud and waste in the
city government and reinvest the
cost savings to lower taxes on both
small and large businesses. Such
lowering of taxes will, as they have
when implemented in the past,
encourage small and large business-
es to expand and make new invest-
ments. Once this occurs, I promise
that you will see many thousands of
jobs created in our town.”
Burnett noted that as city
comptroller he will be respon-
sible for the investment of pension
funds in foreign nations. He prom-
ised to continue the longtime prac-
tice of making investments of NewYork City Employees Retirement
System (NYCERS) only in coun-
tries that are aligned with America
politically, culturally and econom-
ically. To Burnett, the nation that
best meets that criteria is the State
of Israel. “Israel and America,” he
stated, “share the Judeo-Christian
heritage, democratic principles,
and an entrepreneurial-driven eco-
nomic system. That is why New
York City comptrollers since the
birth of Israel have felt comfort-
able making investments there.
That is why I will continue and
expand upon that tradition.”
One of the specific areas that
Burnett said he would look to
expand NYCERS investments is in
the Israel Bond sector: “John Liu
deserves credit for reinvesting $15
million [NYCERS] funds in State
of Israel Bonds. Israel Bonds have
in fact become an intricate part of
the fixed income allocation of the
pension fund portfolio. I believe
that we should look into increasing
our investments [in thes
Noting that Israel has n
to make payment of
principal since the f
Bonds were issued bac
Burnett added, “Wha
looking for in investin
funds is security. And Is
provide that security.”
When I asked Burn
prospect of Iran
nuclear weapons, p
weakening Israel’s s
long-term security, woinvestments in Israel l
tive, he responded, “Ce
We can never allow n
seek to destroy us to inf
behavior. When I thi
threat that Iran poses t
am reminded of the wo
Martin Luther King, w
know, was a great frien
porter of Israel. Dr. K
that a threat to justice a
a threat to justice ever
that same spirit, a threat
a threat to our own free
our own survival. ... W
common enemy who,
our common freedom,
and goodness, hates us
Americans we will alw
by Israel and make certa
mutual enemies never
us and never prevail.”
Robert Golomb is a
published columnist wh
a range of educational, c
political topics.
Trendcontinued from page 12
JEWISH WORLD • OCTOBER 25-31, 20
‘There is nothing
in our economy
that can take the
place of thriving
and growing
businesses.’