When news of the new "Amazon Tax" spread, most New Yorkers probably thought it just meant they'd have to start paying a little more when they ordered online merchandise. But the law, passed in Albany last month, is likely to have a far greater effect on small businesses than it is on consumers.

Critics of the new law say it is unworkable because tracking multiple sales tax rates is difficult - particularly for smaller retailers - while supporters counter that software tools are making this easier. But the reality is that Amazon and other merchants with affiliate programs won't bother adding the additional capability to collect New York tax; instead, they'll take the far easier step of blocking any New York-based site from their affiliate programs. The result will be a tremendous loss of income for the numerous small New York businesses now participating in affiliate programs.

If New York wants a larger share of online sales tax revenues, it should focus on making the state more attractive for online retailers to set up shop here, and improve enforcement of existing tax laws. Instead, the Amazon Tax will hurt New York's small online businesses and entrepreneurs, and ultimately may lower overall tax revenues, while strengthening New York's reputation as being unfriendly to small businesses.

My own experience as mother started out in the overprotective mode. Fine when they are tiny tots and need to be watched, but thankfully by the time they were young adolescents, I had calmed. Living in one of the most populated parts of a large city, was an opportunity for each to develop independence and for me to develop trust.

Starting with being allowed to go to the bus stop alone around age 7 and go down to the little store in the next building to buy a snack or last minute grocery need, then going to the park or further adventures on foot or by bus. They both started to develop a sense of their place. They new which neighbors would always have an eye for them, which were a little off their kilter and which to avoid as much as possible. They developed playground friendships with whoever might be playing in the park (almost always under their own parents watchful eyes.)

I am sure there were parents that thought, my poor kids must be terribly neglected when their mother or father wasn't at the park with them most days. Safe simply must be balanced with freedom.

Eliot Spitzer wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. That is the consistent pattern of his public life, and it is why America will be a better place when the only power he has left is the power to hurt the people closest to him.

In a January 2007 telephone call, Republican State Assemblyman and minority leader Jim Tedisco complained to Mr. Spitzer that he had been shut out of discussions on a new ethics law. According to Fred Dicker's report in the New York Post, Mr. Spitzer then screamed into the phone, "Listen, I'm a [bleeping] steamroller, and I'll roll over you and anybody else." Continuing his telephonic tirade, Mr. Spitzer shouted, "I've done more in three weeks than any governor has done in the history of the state."