The last Republican to occupy the Senate from New York, Alfonse D'Amato, lost to Senator Chuck Schumer in the 1998 mid-term election.

The D'Amato-Schumer contest was one of 1998's most high profile and nastiest races; it may have hit its low point late in the campaign when D'Amato called Schumer a "putzhead" in a private meeting with Jewish supporters. The senator later apologized.

Last year he had his own financial woes.

An ex-ally and business partner of former Sen. Alfonse D’Amato slapped the power broker with a federal lawsuit Thursday alleging he and others swindled her out of at least $5 million in commissions — and tried using her as a “stalking horse” to deceive the feds into giving them lucrative contracts set aside for women-owned businesses.

Tuesday's State of the Union address is rumored to have President Obama calling for a much-needed tax increase on the wealthy, a.k.a. "the job creators." Who better to ask about the American tax code than a typical Republican who believes in Reagan's voodoo, trickle-down economics? Maria Bartiromo asked D'Amato what he thinks of the president's plan.

Well I think he should be ashamed of himself and let me tell you why. We have jobs leaving this country. We have corporations moving because our tax rate is the highest in the industrialized world. And also, corporations employ Americans and real jobs. If we're going to be competitive we've better take a look at lowering the rates on major companies. He's going the other way.

And by the way, the banks, I'm no great defender of the large banks. They deserve to have been hit for the abuses that they absolutely were part and parcel of when we had this economic collapse, but to say I'm going to go after the big banks if you have more than $50 billion and we're going to have more taxes, it doesn't work.

He's talking about income redistribution. Lower the tax on corporate America. Lower the tax on small businesses which create the jobs, the engines. Let them repatriate the hundreds of billions of dollars that we have trapped abroad and say alright, if you invest that money within a period of time with a lower rate, put people back to work and real jobs, not income transfer.

If you merely compare the Democratic and Republican administrations since Reagan through today, you can easily see that the nation's overall prosperity and economic health are far superior when Democratic Presidents are in charge. Enough said.