Budgets are about priorities. They are more than just numbers.
Gov. Chris Christie knows that — and is making clear his own priorities. From today’s Star-Ledger editorial, which pretty much sums up what the governor views as important:
A few days after saying New Jersey is so broke it must cut medical benefits for retirees and freeze their pensions forever, Gov. Chris Christie now says he wants to cut income taxes for the rich.
Think about those priorities. Middle-class families just lost their property tax rebates. Schools lost nearly $1 billion in funding, their biggest hit ever. Thousands of working poor families were closed out of health care programs. And our colleges and universities were whacked hard, forcing tuition hikes as the state scholarship programs run dry.
The governor said those cuts were necessary because the state’s vaults were empty. He was the guy telling us to live within our means, to face hard realities. And now this — a tax cut that would blow a new hole in the budget.
I want readers of this blog to think about what he’s proposing and ask yourselves why giving money back to the rich makes more sense than providing teachers — or ensuring that the people who do the work that we need done get decent salaries and benefits.
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It's all part of the right wing/GOP/libertarian agenda. Destroy the unions, any unions, gut public pensions, obliterate public employee benefits, destroy the middle class, enrich the rich and give our corporate overlords carte blanche to do whatever they damn well please. The GOP-right wing- billionaire libertarian message: Rich people, CEOs, the economic royalists know what is best, so we must cater to their every want and whim. After all, as the right wing loons are wont to repeat over and over, poor people don't create jobs, only rich people create jobs, so we must bow down to the rich and keep giving them tax cuts. We saw how fabulously trickle down worked under Bush.
>>Gov. Chris Christie now says he wants to cut income taxes for the rich.>I want readers of this blog to think about what he's proposing Yes, it makes more sense to me on a several levels: Morally, Strategically, and Tacically.Morally, when someone — rich or poor — creates wealth — be it grows more tomatoes, makes more lumber, or enables the same by capital formation — the Gooferment has NO right to steal it. At least the Mafia was polite when it robbed you and left you enough to survive. The DofI states that all men are created equal. Except when it comes to taxes.Strategically, in a capitalistic society, deferred consumption allows capital formation and risk taking. On Robinson Crusoe's island, Robinson has to save some fish to sustain himself while he weaves a net that allows him to catch more fish in the future. And, there's no guaranty that it will work. So too, today, we need \”rich\” people to forgo consuming, invest, and take risks. Who's more likely to save, invest, and employ others? The rich or the poor? When the Gooferment taxes the rich at disproportionate rate, ti discourages investment and risk taking. Why take a risk when you can spend what would have been \”capital\”, enjoy life, and wait for better times? Tax rates that make the Gooferment your partner 50/50 is one thing. When the the split is 90/10 on profit and you take the loss, then you think real hard about it. (Similar to professionals like doctors who can \”time\” when they take income, rich people have options that the poor do not. Heck, LeBron went to Florida to save taxes.) High tax rates and \”progressive\” tax rates are counter-productive to society. But, not to the Gooferment, who's desire for funds is insatiable. New Jersey was #4 on the list of \”lost high earning\” losers, I just saw. Tactically, New Jersey's tax rates are higher than the surrounding states. Why do politicians and bureaucrats think people are moving to Delaware and Pennsylvania? Retirees depart the state because they can't afford to live here. Do you think that even poor people are stupid?Now let's look at cited case of teachers, politicians, and bureaucrats. Sorry but they do NOT engender sympathy. I've ranted before about Gooferment Skrules are themselves immoral, strategically wrong, and tactically stupid. I won't repeat all those arguments but I'll summarize in one sentence: \”I didn't have any part in the decision to have your children, don't pay to feed them, and the Gooferment should NOT be propagandizing future voters.\” The salary was supposedly lower than in the private marketplace, hence great pensions and benefits. Now, Gooferment workers make twice what the private industry. In private industry, there's no pensions any more. There's no job security. Heck, there's not even salaries for jobs any more. The absolute piggishness of politicians and bureaucrats with their scams to pad salaries, pensions, and benefits is criminal. And, please don't say that allowing the \”rich\” to keep what they have earned so they can invest and take risks prevents the politicians and bureaucrats from earning \”decent salaries and benefits\”.So let's have some reforms:(1) No politicians and bureaucrats can ever make more than the Governor.(2) No pensions for anyone. Convert all to defined contribution plans.(3) Everyone pays a percentage of their benefit costs. (Benefits are a Federal problem.)(4) All income taxes — corporate and personal — are capped at 10%.(5) Let's have a 40 year plan to get the Gooferment out of education. 20 years to privatize it; 20 years to migrate it back to the parents.(6) Let's get serious about the definition of poverty. In comparison to the rest of the world, our \”poor\” are rich.JFK said it best. \”A rising tide raises all boats!\”