What is that he said about one-shot gimmicks?

Gov. Chris Christie, like his predecessor, has been pretty vocal about his opposition to the one-time budget fixes that previous governors have relied on to balance budgets. And just like Gov. Jon Corzine, Gov. Christie appears more committed to the rhetoric than the reality.

How else to explain his raiding of the state’s clean energy fund?

What exactly is the difference between taking money from the cap-and-trade program and relying on federal stimulus funds? Or raiding the pension fund — which he is doing — or the unemployment trust fund? If he were serious about balancing the books without gimmicks, he’s leave the energy fund alone.

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Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

One thought on “What is that he said about one-shot gimmicks?”

  1. Christie is a radical right wing ideologue, he's NJ's version of George Bush but not as dumb and much more capable of completing a thought in a coherent manner. CC is an angry, belligerent, combative, vengeful and vindictive man. Maybe it's that fatness/compensation syndrome thing? He's anti-union, he wants to privatize much of the government, he wants to put a knife in the back of NJN, he's pushing charter schools, all this right wing garbage. He will NOT be cutting the funding for charter schools, isn't that precious. This toxic demagogue is demonizing unions and the NJEA in particular for the sins of the politicians who failed to pay into the pension fund for 11 of the last 15 years. Teachers paid $6 billion into the pension fund for those 15 years. He's scapegoating public workers for the Great Recession which was caused by the criminals on Wall Street and by the geniuses at Merrill Lynch, AIG, CountryWide, Lehman Brothers, etc. (it's a long list). The criminality and fraud of Lehman caused the pension fund to lose $400,000,000 in 2008. But let's blame the teachers, state workers, police and fire fighters. This great recession is a grand opportunity to privatize and to kill the unions.NJ public schools are amongst the top performing schools in NJ but after CC gets done, they will be comparable to Nevada schools. Then the next right wing administration (Obama and Duncan are on board to punish and privatize schools, too) can further demonize the teachers, fire all the teachers, turn all the schools into charter schools and ein, zwei, drei, kokolorum, puff no more unions. Whoopee, then you can fire teachers on a whim, you can fire teachers with too many years. You can lower wages and eliminate all benefits. It's a win for right wing corporatism. The shills at the US Chamber of Commerce, the NJ Chamber of Commerce, the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, etc., (it's a long list), will be eating caviar and swilling champagne for months.

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