Author: hankkalet

Gov. Chris Christie went off on someone again on Saturday, calling a reporter “stupid” in the form of a rhetorical question and an “idiot” as he apologized to the rest of the crowd.

It was just another in a long line of unnecessary nastiness that has been characterized by the national press as “candor,” but is nothing more than the preening invective we condemn when high school kids pick on their classmates.

As troubling as the governor’s behavior — and its seeming acceptance — is for New Jersey, it also sheds some light on the Republican presidential candidate. Mitt Romney, who appeared last Tuesday with Christie at a fundraiser, “teased Christie about his brash behavior,” according to the Associated Press:

“That man really is something, you know that? I was hoping someone in here would start to heckle him so I could watch him go to town here. But you know better, don’t ya? What an extraordinary leader,” Romney said, according to pool reports.

Think about what Romney is saying here. He was hoping for a confrontation so that he could be present during a Christie slap-down, because he equates Christie’s bullying “brashness” with leadership.

The comment — a throwaway line tossed off at a campaign event — should warrant a deeper consideration of the May expose on Romney’s prep-school days published by The Washington Post in May because it opens a window into what the candidate now views as a positive character trait. Christie isn’t brash or combative so much as he is willing to use the power imbalance inherent in his being governor to belittle and beat down his critics. It is an abuse of power, plain and simple. That Romney would praise this says quite a bit about how he views power and what its purposes are.

We know that Romney’s economic approach would privilege those at the top and he has made it clear that he opposes all legislative and executive efforts to level the playing field or address the economic power imbalance in the country. It now appears, however, that this unwillingness is a central part of his world view, that he believes in his core that those with power can use their power to maintain it and that those on the receiving end of their wrath probably deserve every bit of it.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

The contrast says it all. Veto the restoration of the state’s earned income tax credit, which helps those at the bottom of the income ladder, but veto a plan to pay for property tax cuts by taxing 16,000 millionaires, otherwise known as those at the top of the income heap. And veto an effort to help strapped towns by giving them a bigger portion of energy receipts tax payments — money that used to be theirs way back when. And then top it off by vetoing a plan to give towns an extra two years to spend affordable housing money, instead grabbing it to help plug a hole in his budget.

That is Gov. Chris Christie in a nutshell.

One component of President Obama’s health care law that faces a very steep, uphill trudge is the expansion of Medicaid to 133 percent of the poverty line. While it is imperative that states buy into the expansion, tight budgets in nearly every state will result in some difficult choices.

Consider this comment from Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska, Republican, chairman of the National Governors Association:

“As I have said repeatedly, if this unfunded Medicaid expansion is implemented, state aid to education and funding for the University of Nebraska will be cut or taxes will be increased,” Mr. Heineman said.

This is not just political posturing. If expansion costs $3 billion in a state, at some point that state is going to have to come up with $300 million down the road to pay for it. With balance budget requirements, the money has to come from somewhere. To make that happen in New Jersey, where the state is required to balance its budget, it would require either cuts in spending or a tax increase. The extra costs cannot just be added to the budget without some give elsewhere.

I still think expansion is necessary to aid low-income people. But it offers another example of the flaws in the Affordable Care Act and the need to continue fighting to create a more just and egalitarian health system — i.e., Medicare-for-All/single-payer at least as an alternative to the private market — that does not impinge on state budgets or rely on an essentially corrupt private insurance market that privileges profit over care and sets as its primary goal the denial of service to keep costs low.

There has been quite a bit of ink expended on yesterday’s ruling on so-called Obamacare. Here are the three or four best pieces that I’ve come across:

• This is the best summary of yesterday’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act that I’ve come across. Definitely worth a read.
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• An interesting piece in The New York Times on the potential landmine hidden in the majority’s opinion.
• The Washington Post’s Wonkblog explains the issues at the center of Medicaid expansion, now that the court has ruled against federal penalties.
• Here is a good overview of what the ruling means here in New Jersey, from my friends at NJ Spotlight.

Which stories do you find most helpful in explaining yesterday’s ruling?

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Two days and counting. With the state Legislature and governor still at an impasse on tax cuts, the state budget remains in limbo and New Jersey residents are left to wonder what will happen on Monday.

In 2006, a similar impasse resulted in a week-long shutdown of state government that resulted in a flawed compromise and three years of incremental changes that resulted in something short of reform — and the election of Chris Christie as governor.

Now, two-and-a-half years into the Christie administration, we are facing the same potential impasse — and a different set of flawed reforms.

The state pension plan remains a mess, with the governor refusing to make the kind of payments necessary to make it whole and instead blaming state and local workers — you know, police officers firefighters, teachers, social workers, road crews, prison guards, etc.

Property tax growth has slowed, but our tax bills remain the among the highest in the nation, driven in part by our foolish unwillingness to move education funding from the property tax to the income tax or to drastically cut the number of government entities in the state.

More than 1,400 taxing agencies is way too many. Fire districts, garbage districts, etc., only create mini-fiefdoms and generate momentum for spending. Decisions on fire services should be in the hands of municipal or county governments and not in the hands of fire commissioners who sometimes win their positions in elections in which turnout sometimes fails to exceed a couple of percentage points.

On top of this, we have 566 (soon to be 565) municipal governments, nearly 600 school districts and 21 county governments — a number that should be slashed by about a third. There are 70 municipalities in Bergen County, most of which are relatively small both in terms of geography and population. In Middlesex, there are 25 towns, 20 percent of which either have populations of less than 10,000 or are smaller than 2 square miles.

State residents have long viewed this as a problem, though most voters have viewed the need for municipal and school district consolidation as someone else’s problem.

Complicating things is the longstanding antitax mood in the state. For too long, we have want our services in New Jersey, but we do not want to pay for them.

Instead of these issues being the primary focus of our budget debate, Christie and Democratic legislative leaders are arguing over a tax cut that cannot be sustained unless the state meets unrealistic growth projections or brutally slashes spending.

Come Monday, state government may or may not be open for business. But it is guaranteed that business as usual in New Jersey will continue unabated.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.