Getting heated

Sometimes I think we are reliving the Carter years, when an economic malaise and spiking energy costs led to a political revolt that put Ronald Reagan in the White House.

Consider the similarities — rising fuel costs and consumer prices, a crisis in Iran, shrinking international prestige, etc.

Add to this the news announced yesterday by the “state’s four natural gas utilities” that they plan to “boost rates for residential customers by as much as 22 percent, or an average of $32 a month, under plans filed … with the state Board of Public Utilities. The rates would take effect Oct. 1.”

The companies are blaming the increase “on rising international demand for natural gas, a significant drop in imports of liquefied natural gas and lower supplies in the U.S.”

Those factors have combined to double the price utilities pay for the fuel since
last August. Utilities such as Public Service Electric & Gas make no profit
on the sale of natural gas, passing the costs through to customers.

Not exactly good news for already cash-strapped for consumers. The state ratepayer counsel — the person responsible for protecting consumers in the utilities regulatory process — says she plans to take a close look at the rate requests, but does not expect there to be much that can be done.

Because the rate request is the result of higher commodity costs, approval from the BPU is likely, although regulators could grant the increase in multiple steps. Under state law, utilities make no money on the gas itself, but they are entitled to pass along their costs to customers.

“We’ll take a look at it, but because it’s commodity based, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to do anything to keep the prices down,” said Stephanie Brand, the state’s rate counsel, in a telephone interview.

“It’s a trend we’re seeing everywhere,” Brand said. “We’re getting a lot of phone calls and e-mails from consumers having trouble paying their bills. There’s not a whole lot people can do but use less,” she said.

Translation: Keeping the house colder. Isn’t that what Jimmy Carter recommended way back when?

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Bad neck and a bad game, so far

I’m sitting in the den, paying bills and doing paperwork, neck bothering me as I wait for the rain to return and wait for the Mets to score. David Wright fails to get anyone home — first and third two outs — and the Mets leave the Dodgers’ lead intact.

After three games in which the Mets looked like the Mets of ’06, the last two games have seen them return to their lackluster ways.

Alas…..

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GOP offers disingenuous budget response

Three-plus months after Gov. Jon Corzine unveiled his $33 billion budget, the Republican legislative contingent is offering its response.

Too bad the response is as politically motivated as it is flawed.

According to a story in today’s Star-Ledger, the GOP wants to “to restore rebates and pay for big road jobs without toll and gas tax increases” by shifting more than $1 billion in spending from the cities to the suburbs.

The GOP plan would be financed largely by cutting aid to urban school districts and municipalities, as well as targeting state patronage and management jobs, legislative grants and public worker fringe benefits and salaries.

The paper describes the GOP plan this way:

The largest cuts to finance the GOP plan include $157 million from “special municipal aid” and $105 million allotted for the 31 poorest school districts.

They would save another $100 million by eliminating “anticipated pork” for legislative districts, $90 million through more efficient purchasing practices, $85 million by mandating new pension and health insurance givebacks, $69 million in less state subsidies for urban enterprise zones and $68 million by axing patronage and management jobs. The long list includes another $900 million in cuts.

According to a Republican press release, the

plan that identifies $1.32 billion in unnecessary spending in Governor Corzine’s
Fiscal Year 2009 budget proposal and uses it to restore property tax relief and aid to state municipalities, while eliminating the need for gas tax increases to finance transportation needs.

The GOP describes the proposal as both a short-term fix and long-term solution to the state’s annual budget crisis.

“Our primary concern in crafting a state budget should not be the priorities of
Trenton politicians, but those of the taxpayers who are demanding a more affordable New Jersey and a government that is more accountable,” said (Assembly Minority Leader Alex) DeCroce, R-Morris and Passaic. “This proposal is a reprioritization of state spending that provides more tax relief, a strategy to increase the share of pay-as-you-go funding for our state’s transportation program, and more money to reduce the debt burden now facing our children and grandchildren.”

But the key thing to understand about this budget proposal is that the winners would be the suburban constituents of the GOP and the losers would be urban Democrats. This is not to say that the Democrats have not fashioned their budget with this urban suburban split in mind, but it is disingenuous for the Republican leadership to pretend that this is any less political than that of their Democratic colleagues or that it will address the state’s needs in any real way.

One of the most interesting things about the budget plan is that it restores the rebates — something that contradicts the party’s criticisms when the new rebate plan was put into place.

The GOP does offer some structural proposals, but they are the kind that do little more than hamstring government: budget caps and supermajority votes on tax increases.

Some proposals do make sense: placing some borrowing plans on the ballot for voter approval, creating Initiative & Referendum (notice how the GOP always proposes this when it is out of power but then fails to deliver?) and some pension reforms.

But the key to understanding this is the politics. Everything in this state grows from a political agenda and until we can move away from partisanship for the sake of partisanship — which only creates pandering and a one-upping approach to government — and start focusing on the philosphical underpinning of the state’s government, we will not be able to climb out of this morass.

The questions we need to be asking have to do with what the proper level of government services should be and how we pay for it and not which political party will benefit the most.

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Primary pretense

Anyone looking for an example as to why newspapers should not endorse in primaries should read today’s New Yok Times’ endorsements of Richard Zimmer and Frank Lautenberg for the Republican and Democratic Senate nominations in New Jersey.

The Lautenberg endorsement is the stronger of the two — telegraphing the paper’s likely endorsement of the four-term incumbent in the fall, provided he gets past U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews on Tuesday. He gets significantly more space and a far more glowing review of his accomplishments and goals, most of which dovetail with positions taken by the Times in the recent past.

The Zimmer endorsement, on the other hand, reads like one written to satisfy a requirement. Much less real estate is given to the GOP race (the Senate and a House race share space) and while he is lauded for being in the model of past New Jersey moderates, the Times gives a perfunctory nod to his positions on the Bush tax cuts and a balanced budget, calling it a “goal (that) would be impossible to attain without a quick and drastic curtailment of the Iraq war effort, and while Mr. Zimmer wants to withdraw combat troops, he opposes setting a deadline.” Basically, Zimmer and the Times agree on very little and Zimmer wins this endorsement by default.

As a reader — and an editorial writer — I find the approach disingenuous. As I said, the GOP candidate has little chance of winning the paper’s backing in the fall, so why bother with this excercise? If it is only to preserve some false sense of balance — creating an illusion that the November endorsement is up for grabs — then I’d drop the pretense. Better to not endorse in the primaries than to engage in an intellectually dishonest excercise.

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