How Alabama benefitted from 'New York values'

(Video above: Ted Cruz and Donald Trump debate ‘New York values’ in Fox Business debate)

Ted Cruz and Donald Trump spent several minutes in the most recent Republican presidential debate sparring over “New York values.”

Cruz, a Texan, said, “Most people know exactly what New York values are… There are many wonderful, wonderful working men and women in the state of New York, but everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro-gay marriage and focus around money and the media. And I guess I could frame it another way, not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan, I’m just saying.”

The last sentence of Cruz’s provocative comment was in direct response to Trump’s previous statement that “not a lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba,” using Cruz’s father’s home country to call into question his faith.

During the debate, Trump defended “New York values” by reminding the audience that New Yorkers came together to rebuild after 9/11.

“That was a very insulting statement that Ted made,” he concluded.

The media has spent several days since the debate going back and forth over which candidate got the best of the other.

Liberal website Slate.com declared “Trump beats Cruz with New York values.”

The conservative National Review shot back that “Cruz played Trump like a fiddle.”

Here in Dixie, whatever Alabamians think of New York values, they surely will not deny that they have benefitted from them in recent years.

Almost exactly two years ago to the day, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told WCNY radio host Susan Arbetter that “extreme conservatives” who are “right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay,” have “no place in the state of New York.”

He apparently did not think people — particularly large corporations who employee many of his citizens — would take his words literally.

A month later, Remington Arms, a company founded in New York and one of the largest gun manufacturers in the world, announced it was expanding to Alabama, rather than bolstering its operations in the Empire State.

“In Alabama we strongly support and uphold our great U.S. Constitution on which our nation and our states were founded,” Alabama Governor Robert Bentley told Yellowhammer at the time. “The Constitution serves to protect individual Freedoms. Among them are those guaranteed in the Second Amendment, which protects the right of the people to keep and bear Arms. We will protect the Freedoms of individuals and welcome any one or any company to Alabama to discover as so many have, that we are a pro-business state filled with good, hardworking people.”

Remington first began considering new locations after the New York legislature passed the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act in response to the tragic shootings in Newtown, Conn. In addition to banning magazines that contain more than seven rounds and requiring instant background checks on ammo purchases, the NY SAFE Act broadened the definition of so-called “assault weapons” to include a wide range of guns, including the Bushmaster, which was being manufactured at Remington’s New York plant.

The Bushmaster production line was moved to Alabama, a move that Remington’s CEO conceded was necessary because of New York’s anti-Second Amendment beliefs.

From the New York Daily News:

The company says one reason behind its decision to open a new plant in Alabama rather than expand in New York was “state policies affecting use of our products,” Remington Outdoor Company CEO George Kollitides wrote to some upstate officials Oct. 20.

The statement was taken by some as a direct shot at a tough gun control measure enacted by New York in early 2013 in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shootings.

Indeed, one part of the gun control measure, also known as the SAFE Act, banned AR-15 rifles in New York — the very gun Remington made at its plant in upstate Ilion.

Those assault guns will now be made in Alabama.

Kollitides also said workforce quality, business environment, tax and economic incentives, and existing infrastructure impacted the decision to open a plant in Alabama.

Remington is now growing day by day in Alabama, employing more and more workers, but it wouldn’t have moved here in the first place if it wasn’t for “New York values.”