The $5 Billion Question Facing Niagara Falls

Let’s stop pretending we don’t understand what’s happening.

Niagara Falls is a city of roughly 40,000 people that generates billions of dollars every year through tourism, hydroelectric power, and casino gaming — roughly $5 billion annually. That makes it one of the most economically productive places in New York State.

And if you’ve lived here long enough, you remember what it used to be like — the Wintergarden, the Rainbow Mall, a downtown that felt alive. Go back even further and the picture is stronger still: packed streets, steady jobs, families building lives here with confidence.

Niagara Falls worked — more than once, across generations.
That alone proves the decline wasn’t fate.

It was a choice.

Forty thousand people. Five billion dollars a year. By any serious measure, that’s extraordinary economic output. Companies people recognize — Netflix, Nike, Starbucks — operate at this scale. If Niagara Falls were a company, it would be a Fortune 500–level operation.

But unlike a real company, Niagara Falls doesn’t control its own revenue.

We create the value.
Others decide where the money goes.

That’s the core problem.

So no — this city isn’t poor.

It’s extracted from.

Now here’s the part we need to be honest about.

Niagara Falls sits in a state dominated by Democrats. Albany is controlled by Democrats — the Assembly, the Senate, the budget, the committees. All of it.

And yet, election after election, we keep sending Republicans to Albany to “fight for us.”

You really think that works?

In a Democratic supermajority, a Republican legislator has no leverage. They don’t write the budget. They don’t chair committees. They don’t control negotiations. They can complain, posture, or issue press releases — but they cannot force reinvestment into Niagara Falls.

Sending a Republican into a Democratic supermajority to negotiate for Niagara Falls is like sending a sheep to negotiate with wolves. That’s not about intentions. That’s about power.

And power decides outcomes.

If this strategy worked, Niagara Falls wouldn’t look like this after decades of doing exactly that.

This isn’t about left versus right.

It’s about results versus fantasy.

Niagara Falls creates big-city money with small-city power — and then we’re told to accept decline, disinvestment, and hopelessness as normal.

I don’t accept that.

I’m running to start an honest conversation about where the money goes, who controls it, and why a city that creates this much value should finally see it stay here.

Because doing the same thing over and over — and hoping for a different outcome — isn’t independence or toughness.

It’s surrender.

And Niagara Falls deserves better.

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