Tag: governor

Taxes, taxes, taxes

I just want to be clear about this. The two top Republican candidates, Chris Christie and Steve Lonegan, want to cut state income taxes at a moment in state history when we don’t have enough revenue to cover what we now spend.

Lonegan’s plan — a flat tax — would shift the tax burden downward, cutting taxes for most New Jerseyans making more than $70,000. As for the folks at the bottom of the income ladder, they would see an increase in their state income taxes. Seems a tad unfair, if you ask me.

Christie, on the other hand, wants to cut taxes in some unspecified manner that will depend on revenue projections while eliminating state jobs (which ones, he won’t say). This seems to be pure pandering.

Neither plan addresses the real issues that face the state — too many overlapping layers of government, excessive property tax bills, the high cost of living and its impact on lower- and middle-income folks.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Thoughts on school board votes: Divining meaning from the random

Before anyone jumps to conclusions about Tuesday’s school election results, they need to consider the history.

Yes, more than 70 percent of school budgets were approved around the state, according to NJ.com. (The percentage was higher locally.) This may seem like a shockingly high percentage. When placed within its historical context, however, it isn’t.

A quick review of school budget results going back to 1976 shows that in 23 of the last 34 years, including this year, more than two-thirds of budget passed statewide (more than 70 percent passed in 19 of those years); in only five years did less than 60 percent pass — including 1976, when 44 percent passed, the only year in which the numbers dipped below 50.

The lean years, for the most part, correspond with public anger over New Jersey taxes — 1990 and 1991 were the Florio backlash years, 2006 was the property tax reform/budget shutdown year, 1994 featured Christie Whitman’s assault on spending and the 1976 votes came just a month after the creation of the first state income tax in response to court rulings on education funding (Robinson v. Cahill).

Given this history, perhaps yesterday’s results were surprising. Republicans, for instance, are trying to cast Jon Corzine in the role of Jim Florio and re-stoke the anger of that earlier era. And voters are angry about a lot of things — at least according to polls that show a majority of New Jerseyans disapproving of the governor’s efforts to date.

And yet, most budget passed — many by comfortable margins.

What does this mean? It is difficult to say. There are two historical trends butting up against each other — one in which a generalized state-level public anger is taken out on school budgets and another in which voters tend to support educational spending.

Remember, Jim Florio lost by less than 25,000 votes to Whitman in 1993 despite being one of the most unpopular governors in the state’s history and Brendan Byrne won a second term in 1977 despite predictions to the contrary. And Robert Menendez, in the 2006 Senate race, was down by double digits in the polls late in the campaign against Tom Kean Jr. — and he won by double digits.

I have no idea where all of this is going. What I do know, however, is that we have a long way to go before voters have to decide (we don’t even have an official Republican challenger yet). And yesterday’s results did little to clarify this.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Supermajority a super bad idea

This proposal, offered in an advertisement from Republican front runner Chris Christie, should disqualify him from being governor.

“I would ask the legislature to pass a constitutional amendment to be put on the ballot for the voters of New Jersey to require that any time taxes are going to be raised or new taxes imposed, that it require a 2/3 vote of both houses of the state legislature,” says Christie. “So it wouldn’t be easy for one party just to come in and raise taxes 103 times without any ability to restrict them.”

This is not a new proposal — other states have tried this and most have abandoned it because it does little more than starve government of funds and make it impossible to move any kind of revenue changes forward.

In New Jersey, such a constitutional amendment would mean that any tax legislation would need the yes votes of 54 Assembly members and 27 senators — an almost impossible number to.
It also contradicts the democratic process — the concept of majority rule falls by the wayside in favor of a supermajority.

Taxes are not popular, especially now. Christie appears willing to pander to this disgust without taking into account the consequences that such a proposal would have. Rather than offer alternatives to the Corzine budget — where he would cut, for instance — he offers this.

Now that’s what I call leadership.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Empty rhetoric in the race for governor

Chris Christie appears likely to become the Republican nominee for governor in June and, according to the most recent polls, possibly the state’s next governor.

If this is to occur, it appears that it will be based on three things: an inflated reputation as a corruption buster, Gov. Jon Corzine’s inability to connect with voters and convince them that hte pain he is peddling is necessary and the general disrepair in which we find our state government.
It certainly won’t be because he is offering legitimate alternatives. He isn’t.

Consider Al Doblin’s column in The Record, which takes a look at what Christie has been saying in recent weeks:

Last week, Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie went on The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Christie isn’t happy with Governor Corzine’s budget. He wants Corzine to go after waste, fraud and abuse. Christie said that he if were governor, he wouldn’t be increasing taxes and that Corzine has offered New Jerseyans “false choices” in what has to be sacrificed to retain other services.

Christie is skillful with a sound bite. Snap, crackle and pop, he has. Details are another issue.

Lehrer repeatedly asked Christie to name specific programs he would cut as governor. While Christie hammered away on waste, fraud and abuse, Lehrer countered that there are not billions of dollars lost to waste, fraud and abuse in the state budget. He wanted specifics.

Christie explained that wasn’t his job. His job as a candidate was to critique Corzine.

That, of course, is too easy. The fact is that Christie, were h to become governor, will have to make difficult choices. He has a responsibility at least to outline the philosophy he would use when determining what he would do.

I have covered local governments — and local elections — for the last 19 years and it always has driven me crazy when challengers would come in to our office and respond to questions about budgeting, taxes and local programs by saying a) I’m not in office, so I don’t have the information, b) my opponent is making the wrong decisions and I’ll do things differently (but I won’t or can’t tell you how) or c) I’ll go through the budget with a fine tooth comb and eliminate all waste.

Sounds real good, I guess, but it is completely meaningless, a copout. The budget is a public document that offers as detailed an outline as one can find of what public officials believe are important. Candidates have a responsibility to read it. They have a responsibility to formulate specific criticisms and offer a sense of what their budgets would look like.

Which brings me back to Chris Christie and Doblin’s column. From Doblin:

The state budget is all about choices. In his budget, the governor laid out his priorities. He wants to keep funding for education, health care and seniors intact as much as possible. And he is willing to raise some taxes and cut funding from other programs to accomplish that.

Massive layoffs of state workers sounds like an easy budget fix. Christie seems to indicate that he would do that as governor – reduce the state’s workforce. State employees have a right to know whether a Christie administration would make an across-the-board cut that would throw many of them onto unemployment rolls. Many state employees would be laid off according to their seniority in the system. The people left may not be the best-suited for the jobs they have the seniority to fill. That would impact the quality of services provided by the state.

Just as importantly, what is it that Christie believes is important? Gov. Christie Todd Whitman called herself an environmentalists, but gutted the Department of Environmental Protection, making it more difficult for the DEP to do its job. She also did away with the public advocate and created a business ombudsman post — two moves that summed up her philosophy fairly well.

What of Christie? Well, he is playing the political game and avoiding saying anything that might anger any part of the electorate.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.