NJ spending is fixed by courts? So fix the courts.

In this article in the CourierPostOnline, Sharon Schulman discusses the budget options available to New Jersey legislators. Her point is that there are not too many options available to cut:

There is no magic bullet that allows a governor or legislature to give us property-tax relief without creating pain elsewhere. They are constrained by the nearly 75 percent of the state budget that is fixed and cannot be touched. So in a $30 billion budget, $21.5 billion is fixed and cannot be cut. The idea of cutting the state budget 10 percent really only means cutting 10 percent of $8.5 billion -- not from $30 billion. A brief look at the 75 percent of the state budget that is fixed shows us that 60 percent is mandated programs and results of court decisions. They include:

Medicaid

State labor contracts, including contractual commitments to provide health care and other benefits

Court-supervised child welfare reform

Court-ordered spending in Abbott districts

Debt service payments

Great points all. So here we go with suggestions.

1. Our supreme court in New Jersey is frankly a political patronage mill. These people are not exceptional jurists. They are partisan appointees. So what to do?

-Fight the Abbott ruling and have the legislature refuse to follow the courts. New York did and and was successful in getting the payments down and under control.

2. Medicaid rules do not specify all of what should be covered and by what amount. Re-evaluate the New Jersey exposure and cut it to the median of the 50 states expenditure per person.

3. Revisit state labor contracts. Situations change and with a state that is closing in on bankruptcy, everything should be on the table. If the unions won't meet halfway, maybe the citizens will see that only those of us in the private sector are expected to take a hit in bad times. And the result of that will be a taxpayer revolt.

4. Stop borrowing. While the current administration bemoans debt service, they decided to borrow another 3.9 BILLION dollars. Stop it.

These changes would immediatelry have an impact on the budget and the care and feeding of corrupt patronage feeder systems in New Jersey. If EVERYTHING is on the table, then changes can happen.

Really, Governor?

From WBGO News:

Corzine says he is working on a plan for transportation but it will be weeks before he releases it. But the state will still need billions of dollars for it – to pay down debt, widen the Turnpike, and possibly build a new tunnel across the Hudson River. Treasurer David Rousseau has said every governor has needed money for transportation projects but was not willing to risk popularity for the sake of higher tolls.

How about being willing to risk popularity for the sake of reduced spending?

But he couldn't do that. Rousseau is talking about popularity among taxpayers. Corzine doesn't really care about them -- only about being popular among liberals who suck at the teat of big government.

So instead of trying to pull us out of a financial crisis, he's blighting the landscape for employers and taxpayers. Good going, Guv. Way to take the high road.

Corzine paying down the debt? Not yet.

In Newsday.com, this article entitled

NJ takes next step in reducing debt

would make one believe that the state has done something significant. If you believed that, you would be wrong.

Less than two months after creating a special fund to pay down state debt, the Corzine administration has taken a significant next step: identifying the bonds that will be paid off early.

Yes. It took state workers two entire months to identify what bonds to retire early. Given that the source of this news if the clearly biased AP, one wonders if this is not just a Democrat fund raising stunt. Look for Corzine to make a commercial out of it soon. But, the joke is, he hasn't done anything. And he decided to keep your hard earned money to pretend to do it.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine created the fund in June, setting aside $684 million in unexpected tax revenue and other savings. Most of the money _ $650 million _ is being used to reduce the state's crushing $32 billion debt load. The rest will go toward other pressing needs, such as improving state prisons and psychiatric hospitals, the administration said.

As I have noted here before, this is OUR tax money. And instead of paying it back, he and his cronies in the legislature kept it to fund additional spending and try to cover up the increase in debt incurred by this and our former DEMOCRAT governor.

The sad thing is that when Corzine runs his commercials in his re-election campaign, he will not mention what he really did.

Republicans commended the concept, but said Democrats' approval to borrow $3.9 billion for court-ordered school construction would erase any gains.

Sen. Leonard Lance, R-Hunterdon, estimated that the new school borrowing would cost $6.82 billion once interest and other costs were included. He has long advocated a plan to subject all state borrowing to voter approval.

Write the check Governor. We are watching.

Even When It's Private, It's Public

When a Republican says that private investors should invest in a particular technology, they mean that (a) the legislature has been investing with our tax dollars, which should stop, or (b) outside investors should be encouraged to invest through tax breaks and other incentives.

When a Democrat says that private investors should invest in a particular technology, they mean that they want to create a new layer of bureacracy.

Great idea. It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.

Corzine, Stop Buying Scotch!

At the bottom of this Associated Press story is a telling statement about Corzine's approach to borrowing and spending.

Corzine has backed requiring voter approval for new borrowing, but said the school construction money is different because it's court-ordered. The state Supreme Court in 1998 ordered the state to pay for new schools in the poorest school districts.

So if you're told that you must pay for something, you have to be able to borrow money to do it -- regardless of what the voters say.

Consider a normal New Jersey household. (You know, the kind containing a family of people who are thinking of fleeing New Jersey to avoid the outrageous taxes.)

Now consider the husband telling the wife, "Yes, I know we agreed on a budget, and I know that we are in debt up to our ears, but we have to pay taxes, so we have to be able to borrow money for them. I'm going to put them on a credit card. Now I'm going to pop over to the liquor store for a liter of single-malt scotch. Don't worry, we can afford it -- I have cash."

The wife would rightfully beat him about his head and neck. After all, she knows that when you're in debt, you have to control overall spending. When you don't have significant control over a certain expense, that's called "non-discretionary spending". When you can control how much you spend on something, it's called "discretionary spending". The budget must account for non-discretionary spending, sometimes cutting discretionary spending to avoid borrowing to pay for the non-discretionary stuff.

In other words, the wife would shout at her husband, "You idiot! Stop buying scotch when we need money to pay the taxes!"

Corzine needs the equivalent of a sensible wife. Not only doesn't he understand the fact that speculation affects petroleum prices, he doesn't even understand the basics of budgeting.

And this is the guy we elected because of his business experience. Maybe we need politicians with less experience on Wall Street and more experience managing a household budget on Main Street.

More on the Center for Fathers

Special thanks to WBGO's News Director, Doug Doyle, for forwarding the press release about the Center for Fathers to me. I can also now find a tiny amount of coverage for the program (a few of these are essentially the same article): here, here, here, and here.

Here's the press release:

Mayor Booker Tours Newark comprehensive Center for Fathers; Program Provides Support and Resources for City's Dads
Program aims to help Newark fathers raise their children and lead productive lives

Newark, NJ - June 9, 2008 - Mayor Cory A. Booker toured a bold new program to assist Newark fathers at the Newark comprehensive Center for Fathers (NCCF) at Essex County College today. The center is designed to provide an array of services to fathers in transition - men who have lost their jobs or homes, or who are re-entering the workforce following incarceration and who seek to assume greater responsibility for and contribute to the lives of their children.

The facility is administered by the non-profit Newark Now in partnership with the City of Newark; Newark Works; the New Jersey Department of Labor; New Jersey Legal Services; and the ReLese Network. The program is in its third week and already has 20 fathers in the class.

"With the opening of this center, we are now providing the tools that or fathers need to succeed - as men, as parents and as residents of Newark," Mayor Booker said. "I am reaching out to and challenging all the fathers in Newark who are at risk or need help to come out and talk to our staff so that they can help in addressing all needs and concerns. Through the efforts put into this program, residents throughout the City of Newark will be able to sustain successful and productive lives for themselves and their families."

Using a holistic approach, Newark's Comprehensive Center for Fathers offers mentoring, parenting, life skills classes, legal assistance, math and reading skills, individual counseling, support groups, father/child activities. In addition, the program offers employment search and interview preparations services.

At the tour, Mayor Booker was joined by Newark Now Executive Director Modia Butler and Lavar Young, the Executive Director of Newark's Comprehensive Center for Fathers. The NCCF program is based on Philadelphia's nationally-recognized National comprehensive Center for Fathers.

The center's hours are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday. To contact the center and learn more about its programs, call (973) 733-3460 ext. 432.

Contact:
Press Information Office: (973) 733-8004
Press Secretary Esmeralda Diaz Cameron: (201) 396-2556
E-mail: Pressoffice@ci.newark.nj.us

Happy Fathers' Day from Cory Booker

UPDATE: I apologize for the incoherence of what follows. Special thanks to Doug Doyle, WBGO's news director, for sending me the press release that sparked their news item (now published here), and to Cephas Bowles, WBGO's General Manager, for taking the time to discuss funding for public radio in the comments section below.

I've slightly modified the post to fix a few things that the press release helped me sort out.

---

I don't know much about Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, but I want to know more after hearing a news report this morning on Jazz 88, WBGO (if you're not a member, you really should be*).

I'm upset that there isn't coverage about this anywhere. I can't get quotations, and what you're getting is a brain dump of what I heard when I was driving twelve hours ago instead of responsible reporting.

Doug Doyle, the WBGO News Director, talked about a new Center for Fathers in Newark. It's specifically for fathers who are out of work or newly released from jail. Mayor Booker said something to the effect that fathers are a critical part of the life of Newark; that how they fare affects Newark's stability.

Mayor Booker made a comment that I can't clearly recall now, but I remember thinking that he wasn't talking about the equality of the sexes, or of the poor and underprivileged, or of providing handouts to the needy; he was talking about a center where men could learn to be independent men and good fathers in tough times. [From the press release: "With the opening of this center, we are now providing the tools that or fathers need to succeed - as men, as parents and as residents of Newark."]

I hope that I heard correctly. I'd like to know more, but I can't find a thing about this new center out there.

I'm not big on spending money unnecessarily, but seeing a local politician highlight something that would make such a big difference to his environment is really compelling. I wish him well.

-----

* Yes, I know that I shouldn't like Public Radio. I still don't understand what it means to be a "A private corporation funded by the American people", as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) claims to be, nor how the differences between the CPB, PBS, and NPR really matter, if the CPB funds PBS and NPR -- it still sounds like our tax money, just filtered through more layers of bureaucracy. But if they're going to fund it anyway, I'm not going to ignore it out of spite; and if I really think that people should pay for what they want, then WBGO is well worth paying for.

How Screwed Up Do We Need To Be?

Read this article from the Star-Ledger. Take particular note of a few passages:

New Jersey is struggling with more than $32 billion in state debt, the third-highest in the country. All but $3 billion was issued without voter backing.

And then this:

The state constitution already says voters must approve borrowing, but lawmakers routinely have dodged the requirement by authorizing quasi-state agencies to issue billions in debt, and promising to repay it through the state budget.

Got that? According to the state constitution, 90% of our bloated debt slips through a loophole to survive, like Teddy Kennedy escaping his seatbelt at Chappaquiddick.

But apparently we're idiots, because we'll listen to people who tell us things like this:

Critics of the amendment [to require the approval of voters to issue new debt] say it would sap power from legislators elected to make intricate decisions, and turn complex borrowing schemes into yes-or-no issues vulnerable to voters' snap judgments.

"Simple bumper-sticker politics do not lend themselves to (that) kind of decision-making," said Steve Wollmer, spokesman for the powerful New Jersey Education Association teachers union. "It would really limit or potentially cripple the state's ability to make timely investments for the public good."

Of course, by "voters' snap judgments" Mr. Wollmer means "the democratic process". But maybe he has a point: maybe democracy is overrated. It's the same voters' snap judgments that got Jim McGreevey and Richard Codey into office, after all.

Mr. Wollmer thinks that the democratic process should be circumvented for "the public good". I don't know how good his math is -- he's a spokesman for the NJEA, after all, and they don't really focus much on quality education -- but New Jersey has 8,724,560 people and thirty-two billion dollars ($32,000,000,000) in debt. That means that the state owes $3668 for each man, woman, and child in New Jersey. That debt load is not in "the public good". The attitude of Mr. Wollmer and fellows like him is not in the public good.

A government living within its means? That's practically the definition of "the public good".

Richard Codey disagrees because we might be "tying a future governor's and Legislature's hands" should a need for emergency borrowing arise. But like former president Clinton meeting the Razorback cheerleaders, their hands should be tied, and for the same reason -- to stop them from grabbing everything they can get their hands on.

The problem is not that I want to prevent noble men and women to be unable to lead our state through difficult times, but that most of our state legislators are neither noble nor leaders. Codey says, "There are times when you'd need to do it and do it right away and not necessarily wait for an election," and I agree -- but now's not the time.

Not when Richard Codey thinks that there shouldn't be a democracy-based check on public spending.

Not when our so-called leaders have shown themselves incapable of knowing when they should borrow and when they shouldn't.

Not when they circumvent our constitutional process and issue eleven times more debt than they are allowed to.

Not when the State Supreme Court has "ruled the state could continue to issue bonds through its authorities without asking voters first."

That last fact is particularly galling. The ruling came in 2003. "The justices in the minority," the article says, "said the decision essentially killed the clause in the constitution giving voters control," which provides us with One More Example of a liberal court undermining a constitution. In an understatement to tell your grandkids about, Seton Hall University political scientist Joseph Marbach says, "The fact that we need a constitutional amendment to tell the court what the constitution says is also a little bit troubling."

We're in a budget crisis that makes Governor Corzine want to octuple our tolls, shut down hospitals, and provide fiscal responsibility (in the form of increased taxes for outdoor projects). How bad does it need to get before we stop spending money on superfluous certificates for veterans? How screwed up do we have to be as a state before we stop providing handouts to artists? How screwed up do we need to be before they stop spending our money -- and our kids' money, and our grandkids' money?

How screwed up do we need to be before we stop allowing these guys to destroy our state?

Why Business is Fleeing the State

It's like watching a car wreck in slow motion.

Yep. And he (Paul Mulshine) gives a very nice summary of how the wheels have been coming off.

NY Times thinks NJ Legislators are timid!

In a silly opinion piece in the New York Times, the time took the position that Governor Corzine is brave, has done nothing to cause the state's current budget problems and his being saddled with a timid legislature:

Gov. Jon Corzine of New Jersey has thrown in the towel in his four-month effort to persuade the State Legislature to reduce his state’s colossal debt by sharply raising turnpike and parkway tolls. The Legislature, which does not share his sense of urgency, gave him no choice. Despite its merits, the plan had little support from Republicans or the Democrats, who control both legislative houses.

This puff opinion piece is startling in its complete lack of any real information to justify the position the paper is taking. The Times bright idea...raise taxes:

Though the fiscal mess is not of Mr. Corzine’s making, he must come back with an alternative. Our own suggestion is that he reconsider his opposition to raising the state’s gas tax. This may seem counterintuitive with gas prices climbing and politicians everywhere talking about lowering gas taxes, but New Jersey’s levies are among the country’s lowest.

The paper fails to mention that the gas tax is the only piece of taxation that the legislators have failed to raise over the past 10 years. With a constant drumbeat of political bosses serving special interests at the cost of New Jersey taxpayers, residents have driven to a position where they pay the highest overall taxes in the country.

I am actually surprised that this wasn't on the front page. It matches the normal amount of research and bias we have come to expect from the famous newspaper with the collapsing readership. What the paper ignores is that the reason legislators are lukewarm to Corzine's proposals is that he plainly said that he isn't prepared to play scrooge on spending. That tells everyone in government that he isn't serious and won't be left holding the bad when the citizens say enough is enough.

While the Times credits Corzine's 'gumption', they should be calling him on his political cowardice and outright incompetence.

Taxing Porker of the Month - Bill Baroni(R-14) and the Paid Family Leave Tax (watch out John McCain)

For his support of the Paid Family Leave Tax, Bill Baroni get's this month's Taxing Porker of the Month Award. As a Republican, Mr Baroni claims to support good government, claims to be against corruption and excessive spending by Trenton. The strange this is that Mr Baroni has unbelievably large support from the unions of this state such as the NJEA (the largest public employee union in NJ) as well as several trades unions. Given the undue influence unions have in bloating the state budget, one has to question their love of Mr Baroni.

People in New Jersey wonder why Republicans do not get traction in this state despite the large number of people who in many other state would be pre-disposed to be conservative or right of center politically. It is because the Republican party in New Jersey looks too much like the Democratic party in New Jersey. And Bill Baroni is a perfect example.

I think that John McCain may want to re-evaluate Mr Baroni's position in his campaign in the state of New Jersey. It is hard to claim you are against government waste and support lower taxes when your campaign chairman in the state is for both!

Of course, it Mr Baroni somehow realizes that his constituents (who in Hamilton have been severely hurt by their representatives over the post 8 years and pay some of the highest taxes in NJ) are more important than the lobbyists for his union friends, we will happily rescind his pork skin. But I am not holding my breath.

New feature - Taxing Porker of the Month! Greenstein and DeAngelo

It's high time for a new feature highlighting those politicians in the Garden State who seem to defy good sense in promoting a tax (and spend) first culture in our state. It is not surprising that the first winners of this award are from Hamilton township, near to where I live. This township elected a completely irresponsible leadership team that proceeded to take a successful and reasonably well off town and run it into the ground. These two are clearly leftovers from a policy of failed social policy mixed with a complete lack of fiscal responsibility.

The winners are Linda Greenstein and Wayne DeAngelo for their proposal to increase taxes for a paid family leave act that won't help families but will raise taxes. This is more about taxation than helping people and these two cannot even begin to understand how to assist working people in a jam. They could have pursued a range of options but in true liberal form, the only thing they could come up with was to tax every single working person in the state to facilitate their untimely pork.

And for their sadistic torture of the citizens of the state of New Jersey, DeAngelo and Greenstein are our porkers of the month!

Governor Corzine Delivers His Budget

Here's Governor Corzine's speech in text, audio, and video.

There's also a summary of the budget from the state OMB. The executive summary is about seven pages long; the budget summary runs another 74 pages after that. I'm trying to locate a complete budget, but I'm not convinced that it has been published yet.

When I get the chance I'll try to provide some color commentary. I want to see discipline like Assemblyman Polistina showed -- but I'm not holding my breath.

Meanwhile, Steve Lonegan has already issued a comprehensive response to the Governor's speech. Since it's not up on the Americans for Prosperity Web site yet, I'll reproduce it here.

LONEGAN: CORZINE SHOULD PROPOSE REAL CUTS, NOT A "PHONY FREEZE"

Call your legislators and tell them "This is not enough!" Click here for phone numbers.

For Immediate Release: February 26, 2008
Contact: Steve Lonegan (201) 881-6692

-- Codey did the same "cuts" three years ago.

BOGOTA -- Americans for Prosperity New Jersey Director Steve Lonegan called Governor Jon Corzine's proposed budget a "phony freeze" similar to that done by Governor Codey in 2006 and said the state needs real spending reductions to bring New Jersey back.

"New Jersey state spending has doubled in ten years, gone up fifty percent since McGreevey was elected and even with the alleged reductions will be nearly twenty percent higher than it was when Governor Corzine took office," Lonegan said. "The Governor's proposal does nothing to reduce New Jersey's out of control tax burden, nothing to reduce New Jersey's ridiculous welfare state and nothing to cap the outrageous pensions and other giveaways to public employees."

Lonegan said that Corzine's proposal was deficient and should be corrected with the following steps.

• Immediate layoffs, not "early retirement" schemes that keep employees in the pension system.
• Elimination of "Project Labor Agreements" that drive up the cost of state, county and local government construction projects.
• Stopping billions of dollars in debt already authorized but not yet borrowed.
• Elimination of departments including State, Community Affairs, the Comptroller and the Public Advocate.
• Repeal the 9 percent pension hike passed in 2001.
• End state municipal aid to so-called "Abbott" districts that already receive virtually unlimited school aid.
• Raise the retirement age for public employees to 65 and end longevity bonuses.
• The new war on small towns with less than 10,000 residents must be rejected. These towns are the most efficiently run in the state and Corzine's proposal attempts to eliminate them.
• Stopping the use of "rebate" programs as income redistribution schemes, instead of looking at permanent tax relief.
• Crack down on out of control pensions, lavish medical benefits and order new and recent employees into 401(k) programs.
• Sunset all state regulations for a complete review.
• Initiative and Referendum to allow taxpayers to take charge of state government from an out-of-control legislature.
• End binding arbitration for public employees, including police officers.
• Stopping subsidies to New Jersey Network and selling the licenses and facilities to the highest bidder.
• Eliminate all unfunded state mandates on county and local governments.
• Announce he will veto the Paid Family Leave legislation that creates a new $130 Million payroll tax and a new open-ended entitlement program.
• Roll back new garbage taxes, the $10 television tax, the $500 S-Corporation tax and other new taxes passed under the McGreevey-Codey-Corzine administrations
• Oppose any new taxes or toll increases.

"New Jersey has the highest state sales tax in the country, the highest property taxes, the worst income taxes and the worst small business climate in the nation," Lonegan said. "Corzine's budget is the same phony 'freeze' Dick Codey put in before the last election and you can bet that if Corzine somehow gets re-elected in 2009 that the days of big spending, higher taxes, out-of-control debt and more regulations will be back and worse than ever."

Phone calls are more effective than email in letting politicians know how serious you are. Call your legislators and tell them "This is not enough!" Click here for phone numbers.

Quote of the Day

Via Reuters:

"There will clearly be things the government will not be doing in the future."

-- Acting Treasurer David Rousseau

Courage by another name would be called...Cowardice

In the Record's Northjersey.com NJ Politics section, an article written by John Reitmeyer entitled Corzine's toll plan draws more public outrage details some of the serious opposition to Governor Corzine's toll plan. While everyone is acknowledging that the Governor's plan is crashing and burning, it points to a rather irritating trend that keeps repeating itself. The vision is of a Democrat legislator proposing some new tax in an attempt to throw one more piece of excrement on the public wall to see if it will stick.

This kind of logic uses the old paradigm that if the lesser of two evils makes a good thing. The problem is that New Jersey citizens are reaching Florio-like frustration with the entire process and it's lack of concern for them. The Quinnipiac poll the other day for example saw a trully biased question that only could be posed in the Northeast:

If New Jersey voters must choose a way to raise state revenues, choices are:
31 percent say raise sales taxes;
23 percent say raise tolls;
13 percent say raise gas taxes;
13 percent say raise income taxes.

This is a canard question. If you asked the same respondent "Would you be willing to have a 150% increase in the sales tax to balance the budget shortfall, would you choose that?". Of course the answer would be something distinctly New Jersey and quite colorful. My favorite part of this article was written near the end:

"It's a mark of political courage that he is not resorting to the type of quick fixes of the past that bought time, but made the problems worse in the long run," said state Assemblyman Joseph Cryan, chairman of the state Democratic Party. "The fact that alternative ideas don't 'poll well' shows there are no easy answers."

So now, punting on the budget and soaking the taxpayer through an Enron financial scam is courage? And a massive increase to the gas tax is better? I love courage when defined by irresponsible people - if often looks a lot more like cowardice to me.

Governor - Employee staff cuts aren't serious

Governor Corzine has once again proposed what he thinks are draconian cuts and are in reality pedestrian and frankly lack courage. From the NY Times:

Faced with a worsening economy, Gov. Jon S. Corzine is considering reducing the state’s work force by 3,000 employees and closing at least one department in the administration as part of his plan to slash up to $2.5 billion from next year’s budget, people who have been briefed on his plans said on Tuesday.

The issue here is clearly described by the New Jersey Business Industry Association:

Even as private-sector employment growth has slowed over the last six years and nine months, government employment has soared.

Since December 2000, public-sector employment in New Jersey has expanded by a net 53,700 jobs, a 9 percent increase.

So if the Governor is serious, he should be concentrating on reducing state employees in a serious way. The pure fact that he mentions that there will be no layoffs suggests that he really doesn't want to make hard decisions. He should announce publically that the state needs to:

1. Cut state workers by 10 percent from current levels (based on 2007 data, 8000 employees)
2. Establish a series of programs to reduce all NJ non-safety government jobs by at least 10 percent over 3 years (40,000 jobs)
3. Explain to the state how the combination of local, county and state employments has exploded and establish a plan to cut it back.

The Governor cannot continue to pretend that only the state budget is his responsibility. One of the problems is New Jersey is the massive county and local workforce which has no parallel in other states. WHY? As a leader, it is the Governor's job to make this point and lead with solutions to turn it around.

A Portrait In Courage: "We'll Just Keep The Money, OK?"

Via The Daily Journal:

Three area legislators on Monday introduced an eight-point plan they said would reduce state spending and help balance New Jersey's budget.

Among their proposals is one likely to have some homeowners hitting the roof: suspending the state's property tax rebate program for everyone except senior citizens and the disabled.

A rebate is when they collect tax money from you and then give some of it back, right? That's how I always understood the term.

But the New Jersey state government -- specifically State Senator Jeff Van Drew and Assemblymen Nelson Albano and Matthew Milam -- wants to cut spending by cutting rebates.

Follow that? Warped as it seems, they apparently think that "Don't spend so much of our money" means "don't give so much of our money back to us."

They should go back to Legislative Kindergarten, and their teacher should be Assemblyman Polistina. We don't want them to give less of our money back, we want them to spend less of our money.

That gives a deeply ironic feel to this quote:

"This plan requires courage and discipline," Van Drew said, adding that he expected fallout from the proposal to eliminate the annual property tax rebate for residents.

"We know this is almost the Holy Grail of politics, sending people a check in the mail," he said. "But we believe this is the right thing."

I respect the fact that these people are trying to find ways to avoid having Governor Corzine double tolls, and then double them again, and then double them again. (A shoe shine in Penn Station, given the same price inflation, would cost $32.)

I don't respect their calls for "courage and discipline". It takes courage to say "no" to additional requests for money. It takes discipline to stick to a budget. It takes no courage and no discipline to keep the excess money that you've been sucking out of our property taxes during the year.

And I don't respect their spin on the issue:

Van Drew, Albano and Milam said numerous constituents have told them they'd rather forego the rebate check than see tolls raised or get hit with other taxes.

I, too, would rather forego the rebate check than see tolls raised or other taxes levied.

But I would much, much rather see them reduce spending. These gentlemen have set up a classic rhetorical device, the false dichotomy, in an effort to hoodwink us into thinking that this is the only way.

Maybe they actually believe that it is. Maybe they actually believe that they're being courageous. If so, their thinking is hopelessly muddled.

Senator Van Drew, if you're listening: you have it wrong. Only a politician who is warped by the sense of entitlement around him could think that the Holy Grail of politics is sending people a check. I don't want a check. Nobody I've spoken to wants a check. We all want you to take less money in the first place.

Doing that -- and cutting services to make us fiscally whole again -- would take courage and discipline. That's your job. Please execute.

Corzine has now become disgusting! The sky is falling!

Governor Corzine has now gone off the deep end with his approach to his Enron toll plan. Now that citizens have roundly panned his plan, he is resorting to running around the state and telling eveyone that tuition, property taxes will rise and hopitals will close. From Forbes:

The Democratic governor has proposed significantly increasing highway tolls to pay state debt and fund transportation.

"Cutting has to be a part of it, but it is not the total solution," Corzine said. "And people who think that, I think, really are unrealistically suggesting that we cut municipal aid or school aid, which means higher property taxes. Or cut higher educational aid, which means higher tuitions. Or close more hospitals in the state of New Jersey because we don't have the resources to go forward helping our hospitals with charity care."

This man has completely abandoned any attempt to reduce spending. He created a sham spending cut idea web site to pretend he was listening. He won't. The Governor and the Democratic controlled Assembly and Senate have every intention on increasing an entire range of taxes. We are not the only ones paying attention:

But Assemblywoman Charlotte Vandervalk, R-Bergen, charged Corzine with "using scare tactics" to get his plan approved.

"It was a juvenile response analogous to a child taking his ball and going home when he doesn't get his way," Vandervalk said. "Our residents are in dire need of leadership and a realistic solution to solving our state's financial problems, and instead the governor promises doom and gloom if he doesn't get his way with his road tax and borrowing scheme."


The only good news here is that I think we are heading to an outright revolt and Corzine is moving quickly to the possibility of motivating the citzens of this state toward impeachment. We need a governor who is capable of real courage. We frankly have a coward. The state should be done with this man.

Read the entire article here.

Tell Corzine What to Cut

There's a form on Governor Corzine's Web site that enables you to tell him what you'd like to cut. Hat tip: PolitickerNJ.com.

Breath Bated for Feb 26

The linked article talks about how Governor Corzine won't put tolls on Route 440. (It was only 1.5% of the total revenue he intended to generate, after all. Just 98.5% to go...) It also talks about the people who heckled him as well, which makes me think that maybe getting in his face a little bit actually works. (No doubt that's why he wants to close the process from the public, as my co-blogger Dennis has pointed out -- you can't heckle something if you don't know any of the details about it.)

But that's not what caught my attention. It was this:

Corzine said his plan attacks spending by providing for a spending freeze and requiring voter approval for any future borrowing that does not have a dedicated revenue source. He also said the budget he plans to introduce on Feb. 26 will have deep spending cuts in it and predicted the proposal would shift the focus of the debate over his toll road plan.

I can't wait to see what he has in mind.

New Toll Agency will be EXEMPT from Open Records Law

The hits keep rolling on as more information comes out regarding Gov Corzine's asset monetization plan for the toll roads. According to today's Courier Post article:

Gov. Jon S. Corzine would bar the public from examining the inner workings of the toll-road corporation that he wants to create to raise $32 billion, even though it would employ thousands and spend billions of dollars.

As we have discussed before, the Governor wants everyone to keep an open mind. This is despite the fact that he doesn't want citizens to vote on his plan, staged all of the increases for after his re-election campaign and now has no intention of letting the public know what is going on with this new fake entity. And the Governor wonders why the public doesn't trust him?

Pigs Flew over the NJ Statehouse at Toll Protest Today

It looks like for once New Jersey residents are not going to take another tax increase sitting down. New Jersey 101.5 sponsored a protest at the NJ Statehouse today where they released helium filled pigs in reference to Governor Corzine's now famous (or famously stupid) line:

But pigs will fly over the Statehouse before there’s a realistic level of new taxes or spending cuts that can fix this mess.

The protest drew 700-800 people according Newsday online. From the host:

New Jersey 101.5 FM host Casey Bartholomew referenced Corzine's wealth. The governor is a multimillionaire from his days leading Goldman Sachs. That wealth, Bartholomew said, means the governor needn't worry about higher tolls like most New Jerseyans.

"He doesn't care how much a loaf of bread costs," Bartholomew said.

I think Mr Bartholemew is on to something. Given that Mr Corzine vacations in the Hamptons and not the Jersey Shore, it is no wonder he isn't that concerned over the cost of travelling around NJ. This is one of many issues that this Governor is completely out of touch with the citizens of this state.

House Votes on Earmark Moratorium

The National Taxpayers' Union has sent out an alert that seemed a little confusing at first but makes sense when you parse it out.

There is a question on the table -- shall we reauthorize the Higher Education Act? -- that needs a "NO" vote.

Why? Because not reauthorizing the HEA would open the door to a full vote on H. Con. Res. 63 -- a vote that needs a "YES", because it would impose an immediate moratorium on earmarks.

Write those letters, people...

McCain Placing Increased Focus On the Economy - WSJ.com

McCain's not the most conservative guy in the world, but he may be dodging right: McCain Placing Increased Focus On the Economy - WSJ.com

At Boston's historic Faneuil Hall, Mr. McCain said he would "be coming out with more specific proposals," on the economy. "They will be based not on big government interventions and not on raising your taxes and not on increasing government," he said.

Mr. McCain's current economic plan centers around making permanent the Bush tax cuts and cutting corporate taxes and government spending. He has yet to make a specific housing-policy plan other than saying he supports President Bush.

Mr. McCain has portrayed himself on the campaign trail as a Reaganomics conservative, against government spending, taxes and regulation. But his record reflects Teddy Roosevelt's brand of government regulation, which serves the consumer to the benefit of no specific industry or company.

Let's see some more specifics, and let's hope.

Earmarks: "Congress Should Debate Them In The Open And Hold A Public Vote"

Over at Human Events, Newt Gingrich has a great roundup of the recent efforts to regain control over earmarks. Earmarks, you may recall, are dollars that are targeted to pet programs; and the pets often look a lot like Jabba the Hutt -- bloated, all-consuming, and either irrelevant or nasty.

Among other great developments, there's an executive order that prohibits the feds from taking their cues from explanatory reports and other ancillary material -- if a spending guideline isn't in the law as written, it doesn't count.

For appropriations laws and other legislation enacted after the date of this order, executive agencies should not commit, obligate, or expend funds on the basis of earmarks included in any non-statutory source, including requests in reports of committees of the Congress or other congressional documents, or communications from or on behalf of Members of Congress, or any other non-statutory source, except when required by law or when an agency has itself determined a project, program, activity, grant, or other transaction to have merit under statutory criteria or other merit-based decisionmaking.

How often does a sentence that dry sound that good? :)

Also, the President has committed to vetoing any appropriations bill that doesn't cut the number and cost of earmarks by half.

House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio) and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) are both fighting the good fight here -- McConnell, in fact, has just appointed a Republican task force chaired by Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) to address earmark reform. Look for ways to support these men in their struggles against a bloated and domineering federal government.

NJ's new brilliant spending - Prius State Autos

I recently was driving out of my neighborhood when I passed the house of a New Jersey state employee. In the driveway was a brand new Toyota Prius with state decals on it. My immediate question was aside from the normal hype about hydrids, the environment and the desire of many in the state for meaningless symbols at taxpayer expense, was this a good financial and environmental move?

While researching the question, I ran across an article comparing the Prius to a Hummer H2.

When you factor in all the energy it takes to drive and build a Prius it takes almost 50% more energy than a Hummer. In a study by CNW Marketing called "Dust to Dust", researchers discovered that the Prius costs and average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles (the expected lifespan of a hybrid). On the other hand the Hummer costs $1.95 per mile over an expected 300,000 miles. Which means that the Hummer will last three times as long and use less energy than the Prius.

You then ask the question, how about the environment?

This also doesn't take into account the problem with disposing of the used batteries. Most of the hybrids have not been on the market long enough to be disposed of yet, but when it does happen there are going to be more environmental implications.

And the cost implications? The traditional state non-public safety auto is typically a car in the class of a Ford Probe or Chevy Lumina which is half the price of a hybrid.

Hybrids for the most part do not have huge gains in gas mileage over their gas powered counterparts. There is also a premium to buy a hybrid and there is a large chance that the premium will not be offset by the time you get rid of the car. According to Demorro, "It takes five years to offset the premium price of a Prius. Meaning, you have to wait 60 months to save any money over a non-hybrid car because of lower gas expenses."

So, once again, some bright bulb in the state chose to purchase a car that costs more to buy, costs more to run and has real long term potential for harm to the environment. Sounds like typical public policy in the state. Hey, but it least it made someone feel good.

Read the article here.

Forget Corzine - How about a citizen constitution convention to reform taxes!

I caught an editorial in Thursday's Sentinel online that really piqued my interest. It was entitled "Toll Hikes the last trick of a very desperate man". Obviously it was all about John Corzine and his Enron Toll Plan. But there were several points that lead to a very sound conclusion:

Corzine knows taxes are about as high as they can go without precipitating an actual revolution, so substantial tax hikes are out.And because he thinks our elected representatives in the Assembly and Senate will never have the sand to fix the problem (he's right, by the way), the only idea he's got is "asset monetization." In other words, he wants to increase tolls by 50 percent in 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022.

If our elected officials do not have the courage to attack this spending problem in this state, the citizens will have to take matters into their own hands. That was the original purpose of NJTaxrevolution. The problem in our state is really this:

As philosophically bankrupt notions go, this one is a humdinger. In a recent interview, Corzine basically admitted that none of the lawmakers in either the Democratic or Republican parties have the willpower to do what needs to be done to reduce the budget because it's political suicide to support cutting the number of state workers and programs.

The solution may be right there in front of us:

For a real solution, I believe we have to think about something Middlesex County Freeholder Director David B. Crabiel said last week that was reported in Greater Media's publication the Sentinel.

Discussing his frustration with this year's freeholder budget, and noting that "economy and cost-cutting notwithstanding, we may now have reached the point where, absent meaningful tax reform at the state level, no amount of fiscal conservatismor efficiency by county government can offset the rising costs of goods and services," Crabiel spelled out the bottom line.

"If the governor and the Legislature are unable or unwilling to deal with the issue of tax reform in New Jersey," he said, "then they should enact legislation that would convene a limited constitutional convention to allow people to reform the property tax system in New Jersey for themselves."

We may finally be nearing the time when the citizens of this state say ENOUGH.

You can read the entire editorial here.