Hank Kalet

Gov. Jon Corzine fired a shot across the bow today, warning the Legislature that it must refrain from the kind of fiscal shenanigans that got the state into the kind of mess that forced the shutdown of state services over the summer.

Legislative leaders are talking about an average 20 percent property tax for most homeowners next year, and a new school funding formula that would provide an additional $1 billion in aid to local districts.

Speaking to reporters today, Corzine said “Those need to be financed. … I can see how that can be done. We’re working on the details of that and we will continue to. But reform and sustainability are just as important as tax relief. … Otherwise we’ll end up giving false hope to our citizens.”

That means staying away from one-shot gimmicks and finding real recurring revenue that can pay for state spending for years to come.

There remain serious questions that need to be answered about the various plans likely to be unveiled this week, but the biggest question right now appears to be whether the Legislature has the political will to do anything more than nibble around the edges.

As I’ve written often since the summer, there is a need to streamline local government, reducing the number of taxing agencies without creating new bureaucracies, and there is a need for new kinds of revenues, including a much broader use of the state’s income tax to fund education and other services.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Leave it to Eric Alterman to cut through all the, well, um, stuff and hero worship surrounding Sen. John McCain and his potential (sort of, maybe, but we all know he’s running) bid for hte presidency.

You see, these smart boyz are so much smarter than the rest of us, they know that whatever McCain really says, he’s on their side. It doesn’t matter that his political positions, um, suck. Rather, what matters is how cool he is around reporters.

That about covers it, really.

I am so tired of all this talk about “The Straight-Talk Express” and reporters remembering that quixotic, last-second challenge to the Bush nomination in 2000. John McCain is as conservative as they come, for the most part — anti-abortion, big pro-war guy who wants to send more troops into the quagmire of Iraq, has been kowtowing to the religious right and so on and on and on, ad nauseum.

That so many reporters and commentators, even nominally liberal ones, have fallen for his schtick just goes to show how good of a politician he really is.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Thanks to the message sent by the electorate on Tuesday, it appears that the president is moderating his rhetoric and may actually sit and talk with Iran about Iraq, if not about Iran’s nuclear pogram. Consider it a start.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

OK. It’s official. the Democratic squabbling over Iraq begins, as the party’s more cautious wing and its antiwar wing are fighting over whether Iraq-War critic John Murtha will be the party’s majority leader in the newly Democratic House of Representatives.

The cautious wing of the party — critical of the president and his approach on the battlefield, but unwilling to call for a full pullout — is hopings its candidate, Steny Hoyer, will move from deputy minority leader to majority leader, the number two slot in the House.

But the cautious ones need to revisit last week’s electoral sweep, one that was essentially a referendum on the war. Democrats won because the public wants it to end. John Murtha is the most vocal critic of the war and it is imperative that this Marine Corps veteran be the party’s antiwar face in the new Congress.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

This is unfortunate, but at least Russ Feingold will continue to keep fighting in the Senate. We need someone in a major position with his critical vision and progressive principles.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick